All Two-Weight Irreducible Cyclic Codes?

The aim of this paper is the classification of two-weight irreducible cyclic codes. Using Fourier transforms and Gauss sums, we obtain necessary and sufficient numerical conditions for an irreducible cyclic code to have at most two weights. This gives a unified explanation for all two-weight irreducible cyclic codes and allows a conjecturally complete classification. Aside from the two known infinite families of two-weight irreducible cyclic codes, a computer search reveals 11 sporadic examples. We conjecture that these are already all two-weight irreducible cyclic codes and give a partial proof of our conjecture conditionally on GRH.