Quaternary Hermitian self-dual codes of lengths 26, 32, 36, 38 and 40 from modifications of well-known circulant constructions

In this work, we give three new techniques for constructing Hermitian self-dual codes over commutative Frobenius rings with a non-trivial involutory automorphism using $λ$-circulant matrices. The new constructions are derived as modifications of various well-known circulant constructions of self-dual codes. Applying these constructions together with the building-up construction, we construct many new best known quaternary Hermitian self-dual codes of lengths 26, 32, 36, 38 and 40.