New properties of $q$-ary cyclotomic cosets modulo $n = q^{m} - 1$, where $q \geq 3$ is a prime power, are investigated in this paper. Based on these properties, the dimension as well as bounds for the designed distance of some families of classical cyclic codes can be computed. As an application, new families of nonbinary Calderbank-Shor-Steane (CSS) quantum codes as well as new families of convolutional codes are constructed in this work. These new CSS codes have parameters better than the ones available in the literature. The convolutional codes constructed here have free distance greater than the ones available in the literature.

Accepted for publication in Linear Algebra and its Applications