Cohomology-developed matrices: constructing families of weighing matrices and automorphism actions

The aim of this work is to construct families of weighing matrices via their automorphism group action. The matrices can be reconstructed from the 0, 1, 2-cohomology groups of the underlying automorphism group. We use this mechanism to (re)construct the matrices out of abstract group datum. As a consequence, some old and new families of weighing matrices are constructed. These include the Paley conference, the projective space, the Grassmannian, and the flag variety weighing matrices. We develop a general theory relying on low-dimensional group cohomology for constructing automorphism group actions and in turn obtain structured matrices that we call cohomology-developed matrices. This ‘cohomology development’ generalizes the cocyclic and group developments. The algebraic structure of modules of cohomology-developed matrices is discussed, and an orthogonality result is deduced. We also use this algebraic structure to define the notion of quasiproducts, which is a generalization of the Kronecker product.