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Consider a $2^n \times 2^n$ Walsh-Hadamard matrix (via Sylvester's construction). Fix a set $S \subset [2^n]$ of $k\leq 2^{n-1}$ columns.

Consider the rows in the $2^n \times k$ submatrix $H'$ that's obtained by dropping all columns not in $S$. Then we have $2^n$ many $k$-long row vectors. Consider the equivalence relation defined by multiplication by $-1$: $u \sim v$ iff. $u = \pm v$. There are $2^{k}/2 = 2^{k-1}$ equivalence classes this way. Is it true that the number of rows of $H'$ in each equivalence class is the same?

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The $2^n \times 2^n$ Walsh-Hadamard matrix is given explicitly by $$ M(u,v) = (-1)^{\langle u,v \rangle}, $$ where $u,v \in \{0,1\}^n$, and the inner product is given by $$ \langle u,v \rangle = \sum_{i=1}^n u_i v_i. $$ To simplify matters, we will assume henceforth that all computations are modulo 2.

If we restrict to columns $v_1,\ldots,v_k$, then we see a row $\beta_1,\ldots,\beta_k$ whenever $$ \langle u, v_i \rangle = \beta_i, \quad i \in [k]. $$ We can think of this as a linear system in $u_1,\ldots,u_n \in \mathbb{F}_2$. If the system has rank $r$, then there are either no solutions, or $2^{n-r}$ solutions.

In your case, you are identifying rows of the forms $\beta_1,\ldots,\beta_k$ and $\beta_1+1,\ldots,\beta_k+1$. A row is of one of these forms whenever $$ \langle u, v_i + v_k \rangle = \beta_i, \quad i \in [k-1]. $$ Again, this system either has no solutions, or $2^{n-r}$ solutions, where $r$ is the rank.

What this means is that every equivalence class of rows which appears at all, appears the same number of times.

In general, not all $2^{k-1}$ will appear. Indeed, there are only $2^n$ many rows, so if $k > n+1$ then this will certainly not be the case.

Another example is $n = 3$ and $S = \{0,\ldots,7\}$. Here only $4$ out of the $8$ possible equivalence classes appear, each of them appearing twice:

$$ \begin{bmatrix} 1&1&1&1\\ 1&-1&1&-1\\ 1&1&-1&-1\\ 1&-1&-1&1\\ 1&1&1&1\\ 1&-1&1&-1\\ 1&1&-1&-1\\ 1&-1&-1&1 \end{bmatrix} $$

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  • $\begingroup$ Thank you, @Yuval Filmus, I actually meant to tag you under my question because I hoped you'll know the answer, but somehow the system wouldn't let me. Thanks again for this informative answer. $\endgroup$
    – gen
    Commented Nov 14, 2021 at 16:13

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