Arithmetic Nonexistence Conditions for Tight Spherical $5$-Designs

Abstract

We prove two arithmetic nonexistence conditions for tight spherical $5$-designs in dimension $(2m+1)^2-2$. Let $m$ be a positive even integer satisfying $ν_2(m(m+1))\leq5$, where $ν_p(a)$ denotes the exponent of the prime $p$ in the positive integer $a$. We show that such a design does not exist if either (i) $m\equiv1\pmod3$ and $ν_p(m(m+1))\leq1$ for every prime $p\geq7$ with $p\equiv3\pmod4$, or (ii) $m\equiv0\pmod3$, $ν_3(m(m+1))=1$, and $ν_p(m(m+1))\leq1$ for every prime $p\geq5$ with $p\not\equiv1\pmod{12}$. Together, these conditions recover the corresponding nonexistence results of Bannai, Munemasa, and Venkov and of Nebe and Venkov, and exclude parameters not covered by either earlier result, including $m=16,40,88,96,100$. The proofs use lattice theory to constrain the discriminant groups of the associated lattices, and derive contradictions through Gauss sums and determinant congruences.