Lattices from codes over \(\mathbb {Z}_q\): generalization of constructions D, \(D'\) and \(\overline{D}\)

In this paper, we extend the lattice Constructions D, \(D'\) and \(\overline{D}\) (this latter is also known as Forney’s code formula) from codes over \(\mathbb {F}_p\) to linear codes over \(\mathbb {Z}_q\), where \(q \in \mathbb {N}\). We define an operation in \(\mathbb {Z}_q^n\) called zero-one addition, which coincides with the Schur product when restricted to \(\mathbb {Z}_2^n\) and show that the extended Construction \(\overline{D}\) produces a lattice if and only if the nested codes are closed under this addition. A generalization to the real case of the recently developed Construction \(A'\) is also derived and we show that this construction produces a lattice if and only if the corresponding code over \(\mathbb {Z}_q[X]/X^a\) is closed under a shifted zero-one addition. One of the motivations for this work is the recent use of q-ary lattices in cryptography.