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Let m be an even positive integer. A Boolean bent function ƒ on F2m-1 × F2 is called a cyclic bent function if for any a ≠ b ∈ F2m-1 and ε ∈ F2, ƒ(ax1, x2)+ ƒ(bx1, x2 + ε) is always bent, where x1 ∈ F2m-1, x2 ∈ F2. Cyclic bent functions look extremely rare. This paper focuses on cyclic bent functions on F2m-1 × F2 and their applications. The first objective of this paper is to establish a link between quadratic cyclic bent functions and a special type of prequasifields, and construct a class of quadratic cyclic bent functions from the Kantor-Williams prequasifields. The second objective is to use cyclic bent functions to construct families of optimal sequences. The results of this paper show that cyclic bent functions have nice applications in several fields such as coding theory, symmetric cryptography, and CDMA communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A classical method of constructing a linear code over \mathrm GF(q) with a $t$ -design is to use the incidence matrix of the $t$ -design as a generator matrix over \mathrm GF(q) of the code. This approach has been extensively investigated in the literature. In this paper, a different method of constructing linear codes using specific classes of 2-designs is studied, and linear codes with a few weights are obtained from almost difference sets, difference sets, and a type of 2-designs associated to semibent functions. Two families of the codes obtained in this paper are optimal. The linear codes presented in this paper have applications in secret sharing and authentication schemes, in addition to their applications in consumer electronics, communication and data storage systems. A coding-theory approach to the characterization of highly nonlinear Boolean functions is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two general constructions of linear codes with functions over finite fields have been extensively studied in the literature. The first one is given by C(ƒ) = {Tr(aƒ(x) + bx)x∈Fqm*: a, b ∈ Fqm}, where q is a prime power, Fqm* = Fqm \ {0}, Tr is the trace function from Fqm to Fq, and ƒ(x) is a function from Fqm to Fqm with ƒ(0) = 0. Almost bent functions, quadratic functions and some monomials on F2m were used in the first construction, and many families of binary linear codes with few weights were obtained in the literature. This paper studies some punctured codes of these binary codes. Several families of binary linear codes with few weights and new parameters are obtained in this paper. Several families of distance-optimal binary linear codes with new parameters are also produced in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Linear codes with few weights have applications in consumer electronics, communications, data storage systems, secret sharing, authentication codes, and association schemes. As a special class of linear codes, minimal linear codes have important applications in secret sharing and secure computation of data between two parties. The construction of minimal linear codes with new and desirable parameters is an interesting research topic in coding theory and cryptography. Recently, Mesnager et.al. stated that “constructing linear codes with good parameters from non-weakly regular bent functions is an interesting problem.” The goal of this paper is to construct linear codes with two or three weights from non-weakly regular bent functions over finite fields and analyze the minimality of the constructed linear codes. In doing so, we draw inspiration from a paper by Mesnager in which she constructed linear codes with small weights from weakly regular bent functions based on a generic construction method. First, we recall the definitions of the subsets $B_{+}(f)$ and $B_{-}(f)$ associated with a non-weakly regular bent function $f$. Next, we construct two- or three-weight linear $p$ -ary codes on these sets using duals of the non-weakly regular bent functions that are also bent. We note that the constructed linear codes are minimal in almost all cases. Moreover, when $f$ is a non-weakly regular bent function in a certain subclass of Generalized Maiorana-McFarland bent functions, we determine the weight distributions of the corresponding linear codes. As far as we know, the construction of linear codes from non-weakly regular bent functions over finite fields is first studied in the literature by the second author in his dissertation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Linear codes with a few weights have applications in consumer electronics, communication, data storage system, secret sharing, authentication codes, association schemes, and strongly regular graphs. This paper first generalizes the method of constructing two-weight and three-weight linear codes of Ding et al. and Zhou et al. to general weakly regular bent functions and determines the weight distributions of these linear codes. It solves an open problem proposed by Ding et al. Furthermore, this paper constructs new linear codes with two or three weights and presents their weight distributions. They contain some optimal codes meeting certain bound on linear codes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we consider the maximum absolute value \Delta f in the autocorrelation spectrum (not considering the zero point) of a function f . In an even number of variables n , bent functions possess the highest nonlinearity with \Delta f = 0 . The long standing open question (for two decades) in this area is to obtain a theoretical construction of balanced functions with \Delta f < 2^{n/2} . So far, there are only a few examples of such functions for n = 10, 14 , but no general construction technique is known. In this paper, we mathematically construct an infinite class of balanced Boolean functions on n variables having absolute indicator strictly lesser than \delta n = 2^{n/2}-2^{(({n+6})/{4})} , nonlinearity strictly greater than \rho n = 2^{n-1} - 2^{n/2} + 2^{n/2-3} - 5\cdot 2^{(({n-2})/{4})} and algebraic degree n-1 , where n\equiv 2 \pmod 4 and n\geq 46 . While the bound n \geq 46 is required for proving the generic result, our construction starts from n = 18 and nonlinearity > 2^n-1 - 2^n/2 for n = 18, 22 , and 26. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we show that the maximum number of bent component functions of a vectorial function F:GF(2)^n\to GF(2)^n is 2^n-2^n/2 . We also show that it is very easy to construct such functions. However, it is a much more challenging task to find such functions in polynomial form F\in GF(2^n)[x] , where F has only a few terms. The only known power functions having such a large number of bent components are x^{d} , where d=2^{n/2}+1 . In this paper, we show that the binomials F^i(x)=x^2^i(x+x^2^n/2) also have such a large number of bent components, and these binomials are inequivalent to the monomials x^2^n/2+1 if 0

This paper is composed of two main parts related to the nonlinearity of vectorial functions. The first part is devoted to maximally nonlinear (n,m) functions (the so-called bent vectorial functions), which contribute to an optimal resistance to both linear and differential attacks on symmetric cryptosystems. They can be used in block ciphers at the cost of additional diffusion/compression/expansion layers, or as building blocks for the construction of substitution boxes (S-boxes), and they are also useful for constructing robust codes and algebraic manipulation detection codes. A main issue on bent vectorial functions is to characterize bent monomial functions Tr_{m}^{n} (\lambda x^{d}) from \mathbb {F}_{2^{n}} to \mathbb F2^{m} (where m is a divisor of n ) leading to a classification of those bent monomials. We also treat the case of functions with multiple trace terms involving general results and explicit constructions. Furthermore, we investigate some open problems raised by Pasalic et al. and Muratović-Ribić et al. in a series of papers on vectorial functions. The second part is devoted to the nonlinearity of (n,m) -functions. No tight upper bound is known when \frac n2

In this paper, we introduce generalized hyperbent functions from \mathbb F2^{n} to \mathbb Z2^{k} , and investigate decompositions of generalized (hyper)bent functions. We show that generalized (hyper)bent functions f from \mathbb F2^{n} to \mathbb Z2^{k} consist of components which are generalized (hyper)bent functions from \mathbb F2^{n} to {\mathbb Z}_{2^{k^\prime }}$ for some $k^\prime < k$ . For even $n$ , most notably we show that the g-hyperbentness of $f$ is equivalent to the hyperbentness of the components of $f$ with some conditions on the Walsh–Hadamard coefficients. For odd $n$ , we show that the Boolean functions associated to a generalized bent function form an affine space of semibent functions. This complements a recent result for even $n$ , where the associated Boolean functions are bent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we study the duals of generalized bent functions $f: V_{n}\rightarrow \mathbb {Z}_{p^{k}}$ , where $V_{n}$ is an $n$ -dimensional vector space over $\mathbb {F}_{p}$ and $p$ is an odd prime, $k$ is a positive integer. It is known that weakly regular generalized bent functions always appear in pairs since the dual of a weakly regular generalized bent function is also a weakly regular generalized bent function. The duals of non-weakly regular generalized bent functions can be generalized bent or not generalized bent. By generalizing the construction of Çeşmelioğlu et al., 2016, we provide an explicit construction of generalized bent functions whose duals can be generalized bent or not generalized bent. We show that the well-known direct sum construction and the generalized indirect sum construction given in Wang and Fu, 2021. can provide secondary constructions of generalized bent functions whose duals can be generalized bent or not generalized bent. By using the knowledge on ideal decomposition in cyclotomic fields, we prove that $f^{**}(x)=f(-x)$ if $f$ is a generalized bent function and its dual $f^{*}$ is also a generalized bent function. For any non-weakly regular generalized bent function $f$ which satisfies that $f(x)=f(-x)$ and its dual $f^{*}$ is generalized bent, we give a property and as a consequence, we prove that there is no self-dual generalized bent function $f: V_{n}\rightarrow \mathbb {Z}_{p^{k}}$ if $p\equiv 3 ~(mod ~4)$ and $n$ is odd. When $p \equiv 1 ~(mod ~4)$ or $p\equiv 3 ~(mod ~4)$ and $n$ is even, we give a secondary construction of self-dual generalized bent functions. In the end, by the decomposition of generalized bent functions, we characterize the relations between the generalized bentness of the dual of a generalized bent function $f$ and the bentness of the duals of bent functions associated with the generalized bent function $f$ , as well as the relations of self-duality between a generalized bent function $f$ and bent functions associated with the generalized bent function $f$. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highly nonlinear functions (perfect nonlinear, maximum nonlinear, etc.) between finite fields have been studied in numerous papers. These concepts have been generalized first to finite abelian groups and then to finite nonabelian groups. In 2011, Poinsot and Pott introduced a new class of highly nonlinear functions between finite nonabelian groups, which are closely related to maximum nonlinear functions. They found such a function by a computer search, and proposed to find more such functions by theoretical constructions. Since then there is no progress in this topic. In this paper we continue the research in the direction proposed by Poinsot and Pott. Our purpose is to study the properties and constructions of this new class of highly nonlinear functions, called the absolute maximum nonlinear functions in this paper. In particular, for arbitrary finite (abelian or nonabelian) groups $K$ and $N$ with an absolute maximum nonlinear function $f: K \to N$ , we will prove that $N$ has to be abelian, and $f$ cannot be perfect nonlinear if $K$ is not abelian. Then we investigate the numerical constraints on the groups that have absolute maximum nonlinear functions. These constraints will eliminate the existence of absolute maximum nonlinear functions for many finite nonabelian groups. More importantly, using these constraints we will develop a method to construct absolute maximum nonlinear functions for some groups. In particular, we will determine all absolute maximum nonlinear functions on $A_4$ (the alternating group of degree 4). Furthermore, a general method to construct new absolute maximum nonlinear functions from the old ones will be given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we first present two systematic constructions of bent functions by modifying the truth tables of Rothaus’s bent function and Maiorana-McFarland’s bent function respectively. The number of the newly constructed bent functions by modifying the truth table of Rothaus’s bent function is also determined. The methods of constructing self-dual bent functions are then given after the dual functions of these bent functions being determined. Finally, as an application, two constructions of 2-rotation symmetric bent functions are presented in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bent functions, or equivalently, Hadamard difference sets in the elementary Abelian group (${\mathrm {GF}}(2^{2m}), $ +), have been employed to construct symmetric and quasi-symmetric designs having the symmetric difference property. The main objective of this paper is to use bent vectorial functions for a construction of a two-parameter family of binary linear codes that do not satisfy the conditions of the Assmus–Mattson theorem, but nevertheless hold 2-designs. A new coding-theoretic characterization of bent vectorial functions is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whereas the design and properties of bent and plateaued functions have been frequently addressed during the past few decades, there are only a few design methods of the so-called five-valued spectra Boolean functions whose Walsh spectra take the values in $\{0, \pm 2^{\lambda _{1}}, \pm 2^{\lambda _{2}}\}$. Moreover, these design methods mainly regard the specification of these functions in their algebraic normal form (ANF) domain. In this paper, we give a precise characterization of this class of functions in their spectral domain using the concept of a dual of plateaued functions. Both necessary and sufficient conditions on the Walsh support of these functions are given, which then connects their design (in the spectral domain) to a family of the so-called totally (non-overlap) disjoint spectra plateaued functions. We identify some suitable families of plateaued functions having this property, thus providing some generic methods in the spectral domain. Furthermore, we also provide an extensive analysis of their constructions in the ANF domain and provide several generic design methods. The importance of this class of functions is manifolded, where apart from being suitable for some cryptographic applications, we emphasize their property of being constituent functions in the so-called four-bent decomposition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we discover that univariate form of a Niho bent function is a sum of functions having the form of a Leander–Kholosha bent function taken with particular coefficients from \mathbb F2^{n}^{*} for every term. We know that the Niho bent functions are related to o-polynomials. The power terms in the univariate Niho bent function can be derived by working, in a first step, on each monomial of the corresponding o-polynomial separately, and in a second step, adding them to obtain the global expression. This allows, knowing the monomials in an o-polynomial, to obtain the power terms of the polynomial representing corresponding bent function. However, the coefficients are not calculated explicitly. The explicit form is given for the bent functions obtained from quadratic and cubic o-polynomials. We also calculate the algebraic degree of any bent function in the Leander–Kholosha class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a generic construction of codebooks based on binary codes is introduced. With this generic construction, a few previous constructions of optimal codebooks are extended, and a new class of codebooks almost meeting the Levenshtein bound is presented. Exponentially many codebooks meeting or almost meeting the Levenshtein bound from binary codes are obtained in this paper. The codebooks constructed in this paper have alphabet size 4. As a byproduct, three bounds on the parameters of binary codes are derived. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

2-to-1 mappings over finite fields play an important role in symmetric cryptography, particularly in the constructions of APN functions, bent functions, and semi-bent functions. Very recently, Mesnager and Qu [IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory 65 (12): 7884-7895] provided a systematic study of 2-to-1 mappings over finite fields. In particular, they determined all 2-to-1 mappings of degree at most 4 over any finite field. Besides, another research direction is to consider 2-to-1 polynomials with few terms. Some results about 2-to-1 monomials and binomials have been obtained in [IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory 65 (12): 7884-7895]. Motivated by their work, in this present paper, we push further the study of 2-to-1 mappings, particularly over finite fields with characteristic 2 (binary case being the most interesting for applications). Firstly, we completely determine 2-to-1 polynomials with degree 5 over F2n using the well-known Hasse-Weil bound. Besides, we consider 2-to-1 mappings with few terms, mainly trinomials and quadrinomials. Using the multivariate method and the resultant of two polynomials, we present two classes of 2-to-1 trinomials, which explain all the examples of 2-to-1 trinomials of the form xk + β xℓ + α ∈ F2n[x] with n ≤ 7. We derive twelve classes of 2-to-1 quadrinomials with trivial coefficients over F2n. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a construction of codebooks based on a set of bent functions satisfying certain conditions is introduced. It includes some earlier constructions of codebooks meeting the Levenstein bound as special cases. With this construction, two new families of codebooks achieving the Levenstein bound are obtained. The codebooks constructed in this paper could have a very small alphabet size. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Walsh transform \(\widehat {f}\) of a quadratic function \(f: {\mathbb F}_{p^{n}}\rightarrow {\mathbb F} _{p}\) satisfies \(|\widehat {f}| \in \{0,p^{{n+s}/{2}}\}\) for an integer \(0\le s\le n-1\) , depending on \(f\) . In this paper, quadratic functions of the form \({\mathcal {F}}_{p,n}(x) = {\rm Tr_{n}}(\sum _{i=0}^{k}a_{i}x^{p^{i}+1})\) are studied, with the restriction that \(a_{i} \in {\mathbb F} _{p},~ 0\leq i\leq k\) . Three methods for enumeration of such functions are presented when the value for \(s\) is prescribed. This paper extends earlier enumeration results significantly, for instance, the generating function for the counting function is obtained, when \(n\) is odd and relatively prime to \(p\) , or when \(n=2m\) , for odd \(m\) and \(p=2.\) The number of bent and semibent functions for various classes of \(n\) is also obtained [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New quadratic bent functions in polynomial form are constructed in this paper. The constructions give new Boolean bent, generalized Boolean bent and \(p\) -ary bent functions. Based on \(\boldsymbol {\mathbb {Z}}_{4}\) -valued quadratic forms, a simple method provides several new constructions of generalized Boolean bent functions. From these generalized Boolean bent functions a method is presented to transform them into Boolean bent and semi-bent functions. Moreover, many new \(p\) -ary bent functions can also be obtained by applying similar methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to increase our knowledge on generalized bent functions (including generalized bent Boolean functions and generalized $p$ -ary bent functions with odd prime $p$ ) by bringing new results on their characterization and construction in arbitrary characteristic. More specifically, we first investigate relations between generalized bent functions and bent functions by the decomposition of generalized bent functions. This enables us to completely characterize generalized bent functions and $\mathbb Z_{p^{k}}$ -bent functions by some affine space associated with the generalized bent functions. We also present the relationship between generalized bent Boolean functions with an odd number of variables and generalized bent Boolean functions with an even number of variables. Based on the well-known Maiorana-McFarland class of Boolean functions, we present some infinite classes of generalized bent Boolean functions. In addition, we introduce a class of generalized hyperbent functions that can be seen as generalized Dillon’s $PS$ functions. Finally, we solve an open problem related to the description of the dual function of a weakly regular generalized bent Boolean function with an odd number of variables via the Walsh–Hadamard transform of their component functions, and we generalize these results to the case of odd prime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plateaued functions are very important crypto- graphic functions due to their various desirable cryptographic characteristics. We point out that plateaued functions are more general than bent functions (that is, functions with maximum nonlinearity). Some Boolean plateaued functions have large nonlinearity, which provides protection against fast correlation attacks when they are used as combiners or filters in stream ciphers, and contributes, when they are the component functions of the substitution boxes in block ciphers, to protection against linear cryptanalysis. P-ary plateaued functions have attracted recently some attention in the literature, and many activities on generalized $p$ -ary functions have been carried out. This paper increases our knowledge on plateaued functions in the general context of generalized p$ -ary functions. We first introduce two new versions of plateaued functions, which we shall call generalized plateaued functions and admissible plateaued functions. The generalized plateaued functions extend the standard notion of plateaued p$ -ary functions to those whose outputs are in the ring . Next, we study the generalized plateaued functions and use admissible plateaued functions to characterize the generalized plateaued functions by means of their components. Finally, we provide for the first time two constructions of generalized plateaued functions. In particular, we generalize a known secondary construction of binary generalized bent functions and derive constructions of binary generalized plateaued functions with different amplitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As a class of optimal combinatorial objects, bent functions have important applications in cryptography, sequence design, and coding theory. Bent idempotents are a subclass of bent functions and of great interest, since they can be stored in less space and allow faster computation of the Walsh-Hadamard transform. The objective of this paper is to present a generic construction of bent functions from known ones. It includes the previous constructions of bent functions by Mesnager and Xu et al. as special cases, and produces new bent functions, which cannot be produced by earlier ones. In particular, it also generates infinite families of bent idempotents over F2^{2m} of any algebraic degree between 2 and $m$ . This together with a recent construction by Su and Tang gives a positive answer to an open problem on bent idempotents proposed by Carlet. In addition, an infinite family of anti-self-dual bent functions is obtained in which the sum of any three distinct functions is again an anti-self-dual bent function in this family. This solves an open problem recently proposed by Mesnager. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we investigate properties of generalized bent Boolean functions and 2^k-bent (i.e., negabent, octabent, hexadecabent, et al.) Boolean functions in a uniform framework. From the Hadamard matrices, Hodžić and Pasalic presented sufficient conditions for generalized bent functions. Using cyclotomic fields and the decomposition of generalized bent functions, we generalize their results, prove that Hodžić and Pasalic’s conditions of generalized bent functions are not only sufficient but also necessary, and completely characterize generalized bent functions in terms of their component functions. Furthermore, we present a secondary construction of bent functions or semi-bent functions from generalized bent functions. Finally, we give the relations of generalized bent functions and 2^k-bent functions, demonstrate that 2^k-bent functions are actually a special class of generalized bent functions, and completely characterize 2^k-bent functions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Two-to-one (2-to-1) mappings over finite fields play an important role in symmetric cryptography. In particular they allow to design APN functions, bent functions and semi-bent functions. In this paper we provide a systematic study of two-to-one mappings that are defined over finite fields. We characterize such mappings by means of the Walsh transforms. We also present several constructions, including an AGW-like criterion, constructions with the form of $x^{r}h(x^{(q-1)/d})$ , those from permutation polynomials, from linear translators and from APN functions. Then we present 2-to-1 polynomial mappings in classical classes of polynomials: linearized polynomials and monomials, low degree polynomials, Dickson polynomials and Muller-Cohen-Matthews polynomials, etc. Lastly, we show applications of 2-to-1 mappings over finite fields for constructions of bent Boolean and vectorial bent functions, semi-bent functions, planar functions and permutation polynomials. In all those respects, we shall review what is known and provide several new results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The design of plateaued functions over $GF(2)^{n}$ , also known as 3-valued Walsh spectra functions (taking the values from the set $\{0, \pm 2^{\lceil ({n+s}/{2}) \rceil }\}$), has been commonly approached by specifying a suitable algebraic normal form which then induces this particular Walsh spectral characterization. In this paper, we consider the reversed design method which specifies these functions in the spectral domain by specifying a suitable allocation of the nonzero spectral values and their signs. We analyze the properties of trivial and nontrivial plateaued functions (as affine inequivalent distinct subclasses), which are distinguished by their Walsh support $S_{f}$ (the subset of $GF(2)^{n}$ having the nonzero spectral values) in terms of whether it is an affine subspace or not. The former class exactly corresponds to partially bent functions and admits linear structures, whereas the latter class may contain functions without linear structures. A simple sufficient condition on $S_{f}$ , which ensures the nonexistence of linear structures, is derived and some generic design methods of nontrivial plateaued functions without linear structures are given. The extended affine equivalence of plateaued functions is also addressed using the concept of dual of plateaued functions. Furthermore, we solve the problem of specifying disjoint spectra (non)trivial plateaued functions of maximal cardinality whose concatenation can be used to construct bent functions in a generic manner. This approach may lead to new classes of bent functions due to large variety of possibilities to select underlying duals that define these disjoint spectra plateaued functions. An additional method of specifying affine inequivalent plateaued functions, obtained by applying a nonlinear transform to their input domain, is also given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Substitution boxes (S-boxes) play a central role in the modern design of iterative block ciphers. While in substitution-permutation networks the S-boxes are bijective, thus ensuring the invertibility of the encryption algorithm, the property of being bijective is not mandatory for Feistel kind of networks. In this paper, two methods of constructing highly nonlinear balanced S-boxes (whose nonlinearity > 2^n-1-2^n/2 is better than the nonlinearity of the commonly used inverse S-box) with good algebraic and differential properties are given. The first method employs two vectorial Boolean functions from the Maiorana–McFarland class that need to fulfill certain conditions. In particular, these conditions are shown to be satisfied by maximum length sequences. The second method is based on a suitable modification of a certain class of vectorial bent functions. The differential properties of these boxes, measured as a deviation from an optimal uniform distribution, also appear to be better than those of the inverse S-box. Both methods are susceptible to further optimizations of the relevant cryptographic parameters due to the underlying design ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been an active research issue for many years to construct new bent functions. For k odd with \gcd (n, k)=1 and a\in \mathbb F3^{n}^{*} , the function f(x)=Tr1^{n}(ax^{(({3^{k}+1})/{2})}) is weakly regular bent over \mathbb F3^{n} , where Tr1^{n}(\cdot) is the trace function from \mathbb F3^{n} to \mathbb F3 . This is the well-known Coulter–Matthews bent function. In this paper, we determine the dual function of f(x) completely. As a consequence, we find many classes of ternary bent functions not reported in the literature previously. Such bent functions are not quadratic if k>1 and have (((1+\sqrt 5)/2)^w+1-((1-\sqrt 5)/2)^w+1)/\sqrt 5 or (((1+\sqrt 5)/2)^n-w+1-((1-\sqrt 5)/2)^n-w+1)/\sqrt 5 trace terms, where 0

This paper presents a study of perturbations of symmetric Boolean functions. In particular, it establishes a connection between exponential sums of these perturbations and Diophantine equations of the form \sum l=0^{n} \binom {n}{l} xl=0 , where xj belongs to some fixed bounded subset $\Gamma $ of \mathbb {Z} . The concepts of trivially balanced symmetric Boolean function and sporadic balanced Boolean function are extended to this type of perturbations. An observation made by Canteaut and Videau for symmetric Boolean functions of fixed degree is extended. To be specific, it is proved that, excluding the trivial cases, balanced perturbations of fixed degree do not exist when the number of variables grows. Some sporadic balanced perturbations are presented. Finally, a beautiful but unexpected identity between exponential sums for perturbations of two different symmetric Boolean functions is also included in this work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the mid 1960s, Rothaus proposed the so-called “most general form” of constructing new bent functions by using three (initial) bent functions whose sum is again bent. In this paper, we utilize a special case of Rothaus construction when two of these three bent functions differ by a suitably chosen characteristic function of an $n/2$ -dimensional subspace. This simplification allows us to treat the induced bent conditions more easily, also implying the possibility to specify the initial functions in the partial spread class and most notably to identify several instances of the so-called non-normal bent functions. Affine inequivalent bent functions within this class are then identified using a suitable selection of initial bent functions within the partial spread class (stemming from the complete Desarguesian spread). It is also shown that when the initial bent functions belong to the class \mathcal {D} , then, under certain conditions, the constructed functions provably do not belong to the completed Maiorana–McFarland class. We conjecture that our method potentially generates an infinite class of non-normal bent functions (all tested ten-variable functions are non-normal but unfortunately they are weakly normal) though there are no efficient computational tools for confirming this. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rotation symmetric bent functions and their generation two-rotation symmetric bent functions are two classes of cryptographically significant Boolean functions. However, few constructions have been presented in the literature, which either have restriction on integer $n$ or have algebraic degree no more than 4. In this paper, for any even integer $n\ge 4$ , three classes of bent functions are presented respectively. Most notably, the proposed $n$ -variable rotation symmetric bent functions and two-rotation symmetric bent functions can have any possible algebraic degree ranging from 2 to $n/2$ . Besides, we obtain bent idempotent functions with the maximal algebraic degree $n/2$ . [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Bent functions can be classified into regular bent functions, weakly regular but not regular bent functions, and non-weakly regular bent functions. Regular and weakly regular bent functions always appear in pairs, since their duals are also bent functions. In general, this does not apply to non-weakly regular bent functions. However, the first known construction of non-weakly regular bent functions by Çeşmelioğlu et al. yields bent functions for which the dual is also bent. In this paper, the first construction of non-weakly regular bent functions for which the dual is not bent is presented. We call such functions non-dual-bent functions. Until now, only sporadic examples found via computer search were known. We then show that with the direct sum of bent functions and with the construction by Çeşmelioğlu et al., one can obtain infinitely many non-dual-bent functions once one example of a non-dual-bent function is known. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

2-to-1 mappings over finite fields play an important role in symmetric cryptography, particularly in the constructions of APN functions, bent functions, and semi-bent functions. Very recently, Mesnager and Qu [IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory 65 (12): 7884-7895] provided a systematic study of 2-to-1 mappings over finite fields. In particular, they determined all 2-to-1 mappings of degree at most 4 over any finite field. Besides, another research direction is to consider 2-to-1 polynomials with few terms. Some results about 2-to-1 monomials and binomials have been obtained in [IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory 65 (12): 7884-7895]. Motivated by their work, in this present paper, we push further the study of 2-to-1 mappings, particularly over finite fields with characteristic 2 (binary case being the most interesting for applications). Firstly, we completely determine 2-to-1 polynomials with degree 5 over F2n using the well-known Hasse-Weil bound. Besides, we consider 2-to-1 mappings with few terms, mainly trinomials and quadrinomials. Using the multivariate method and the resultant of two polynomials, we present two classes of 2-to-1 trinomials, which explain all the examples of 2-to-1 trinomials of the form xk + β xℓ + α ∈ F2n[x] with n ≤ 7. We derive twelve classes of 2-to-1 quadrinomials with trivial coefficients over F2n. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The problem of constructing bent–negabent functions that do not belong to the completed Maiorana–McFarland class emerges implicitly through a series of construction methods proposed recently. These approaches manage to optimize the algebraic degree of bent–negabent functions, but all of the constructed bent–negabent functions belong to the completed Maiorana–McFarland class. In this paper, we use the indirect sum construction (proposed by Carlet in 2004) for constructing the bent–negabent functions that are not provably contained in this class, which is the first significant attempt in this direction. To achieve this, we first provide a class of bent functions with certain desirable properties that does not belong to this class and demonstrate the existence of the class members. Then, embedding these functions in the framework of the indirect sum construction, we are able to specify sufficient conditions for bent–negabent functions not being contained in the completed Maiorana–McFarland class. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A natural generalization of bent functions is a class of functions from ${\mathbb F}_{2}^{n}$ to ${\mathbb Z}_{2^{k}}$ which is known as generalized bent (gbent) functions. The construction and characterization of gbent functions are commonly described in terms of the Walsh transforms of the associated Boolean functions. Using similar approach, we first determine the dual of a gbent function when $n$ is even. Then, depending on the parity of $n$ , it is shown that the Gray image of a gbent function is $(k-1)$ or $(k-2)$ plateaued, which generalizes previous results for $k$ = 2,3, and 4. We then completely characterize gbent functions as algebraic objects. More precisely, again depending on the parity of $n$ , a gbent function is a $(k-1)$ -dimensional affine space of bent functions or semi-bent functions with certain interesting additional properties, which we completely describe. Finally, we also consider a subclass of functions from ${\mathbb F}_{2}^{n}$ to ${\mathbb Z}_{2^{k}}$ , called ${\mathbb Z}_{q}$ -bent functions (which are necessarily gbent), which essentially gives rise to relative difference sets similarly to standard bent functions. Two examples of this class of functions are provided and it is demonstrated that many gbent functions are not ${\mathbb Z}_{q}$ -bent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A function $F: \mathbb {F}_{2}^{n}\rightarrow \mathbb {F} _{2}^{n}$ , $n=2m$ , can have at most $2^{n}-2^{m}$ bent component functions. Trivial examples are vectorial bent functions from $\mathbb {F}_{2}^{n}$ to $\mathbb {F}_{2}^{m}$ , seen as functions on $\mathbb {F}_{2}^{n}$. The first nontrivial example is given in univariate form as $x^{2^{r}} {\rm Tr^{n}_{m}}(x), 1\le r < m$ (Pott et al. 2018), a few more examples of similar shape are given by Mesnager et al. 2019, and finally it has been shown that the quadratic function $F(x) = x^{2^{r}} {\rm Tr^{n}_{m}}(\Lambda (x))$ , has $2^{n}-2^{m}$ bent components if and only if $\Lambda $ is a linearized permutation polynomial of $\mathbb {F}_{2^{m}}[x]$ (Anbar et al. 2021). In the first part of this article, an upper bound for the nonlinearity of plateaued functions with $2^{n}-2^{m}$ bent components is shown, which is attained by the example $x^{2^{r}} {\rm Tr^{n}_{m}}(x)$. We then analyse in detail nonlinearity and differential spectrum of the class of functions $F(x) = x^{2^{r}} {\rm Tr^{n}_{m}}(\Lambda (x))$ , which, as will be seen, requires the study of the functions $x^{2^{r}}\Lambda (x)$. In the last part we demonstrate that this class belongs to a larger class of functions with $2^{n}-2^{m}$ Maiorana-McFarland bent components, which also contains nonquadratic and non-plateaued functions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pott et al. (2018) showed that F(x) = x2rTrnm(x) , n = 2m , r ≥ 1, is a nontrivial example of a vectorial function with the maximal possible number 2n-2m of bent components. Mesnager et al. (2019) generalized this result by showing conditions on Λ (x) = x + ∑j=1σ αjx2tj, αj ∈ F2m, under which F(x) = x2rTrnm(Λ (x)) has the maximal possible number of bent components. We simplify these conditions and further analyse this class of functions. For all related vectorial bent functions F(x) = Trnm(γ F(x)) , γ ∈ F2n \ F2m, which as we will point out belong to the Maiorana-McFarland class, we describe the collection of the solution spaces for the linear equations DaF(x) = F(x) + F(x+a) + F(a) = 0 , which forms a spread of F2n. Analysing these spreads, we can infer neat conditions for functions H(x) = (F(x),G(x)) from F2n to F2m × F2m to exhibit small differential uniformity (for instance for Λ (x) = x and r=0 this fact is used in the construction of Carlet’s, Pott-Zhou’s, Taniguchi’s APN-function). For some classes of H(x) we determine differential uniformity and with a method based on Bezout’s theorem nonlinearity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first and the third authors recently introduced a spectral construction of plateaued and of 5-value spectrum functions. In particular, the design of the latter class requires a specification of integers $\{W(u):u\in \mathbb {F}^{n}_{2}\}$ , where $W(u)\in \left\{{0, \pm 2^{\frac {n+s_{1}}{2}}, \pm 2^{\frac {n+s_{2}}{2}}}\right\}$ , so that the sequence $\{W(u):u\in \mathbb {F}^{n}_{2}\}$ is a valid spectrum of a Boolean function (recovered using the inverse Walsh transform). Technically, this is done by allocating a suitable Walsh support $S=S^{[{1}]}\cup S^{[{2}]}\subset \mathbb {F}^{n}_{2}$ , where $S^{[i]}$ corresponds to those $u \in \mathbb {F} _{2}^{n}$ for which $W(u)=\pm 2^{\frac {n+s_{i}}{2}}$. In addition, two dual functions $g_{[i]}:S^{[i]}\rightarrow \mathbb {F}_{2}$ (with $\#S^{[i]}=2^{\lambda _{i}}$) are employed to specify the signs through $W(u)=2^{\frac {n+s_{i}}{2}}(-1)^{g_{[i]}(u)}$ for $u\in S^{[i]}$ whereas $W(u)=0$ for $u\not \in S$. In this work, two closely related problems are considered. Firstly, the specification of plateaued functions (duals) $g_{[i]}$ , which additionally satisfy the so-called totally disjoint spectra property, is fully characterized (so that $W(u)$ is a spectrum of a Boolean function) when the Walsh support $S$ is given as a union of two disjoint affine subspaces $S^{[i]}$. Especially, when plateaued dual functions $g_{[i]}$ themselves have affine Walsh supports, an efficient spectral design that utilizes arbitrary bent functions (as duals of $g_{[i]}$) on the corresponding ambient spaces is given. The problem of specifying affine inequivalent 5-value spectra functions is also addressed and an efficient construction method that ensures the inequivalence property is derived (sufficient condition being a selection of affine inequivalent duals). In the second part of this work, we investigate duals of plateaued functions with affine Walsh supports. For a given such plateaued function, we show that different orderings of its Walsh support which are employing the Sylvester-Hadamard recursion actually induce bent duals which are affine equivalent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are two construction methods of designs from $(n,m)$ -bent functions, known as translation and addition designs. In this article we analyze, which equivalence relation for Boolean bent functions, i.e. $(n,1)$ -bent functions, and vectorial bent functions, i.e. $(n,m)$ -bent functions with $2\le m\le n/2$ , is coarser: extended-affine equivalence or isomorphism of associated translation and addition designs. First, we observe that similar to the Boolean bent functions, extended-affine equivalence of vectorial $(n,m)$ -bent functions and isomorphism of addition designs are the same concepts for all even $n$ and $m\le n/2$. Further, we show that extended-affine inequivalent Boolean bent functions in $n$ variables, whose translation designs are isomorphic, exist for all $n\ge 6$. This implies, that isomorphism of translation designs for Boolean bent functions is a coarser equivalence relation than extended-affine equivalence. However, we do not observe the same phenomenon for vectorial bent functions in a small number of variables. We classify and enumerate all vectorial bent functions in six variables and show, that in contrast to the Boolean case, one cannot exhibit isomorphic translation designs from extended-affine inequivalent vectorial $(6,m)$ -bent functions with $m\in \{ 2,3 \}$. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For any given channel $W$ with classical inputs and possibly quantum outputs, a dual classical-input channel $W^\perp $ can be defined by embedding the original into a channel $ \mathcal N$ with quantum inputs and outputs. Here, we give new uncertainty relations for a general class of entropies that lead to very close relationships between the original channel and its dual. Moreover, we show that channel duality can be combined with duality of linear codes, whereupon the uncertainty relations imply that the performance of a given code over a given channel is entirely characterized by the performance of the dual code on the dual channel. This has several applications. In the context of polar codes, it implies that the rates of polarization to ideal and useless channels must be identical. Duality also relates the tasks of channel coding and privacy amplification, implying that the finite blocklength performance of extractors and codes is precisely linked, and those optimal rate extractors can be transformed into capacity-achieving codes, and vice versa. Finally, duality also extends to the EXIT function of any channel and code. Here, it implies that for any channel family, if the EXIT function for a fixed code has a sharp transition, then it must be such that the rate of the code equals the capacity at the transition. This gives a different route to proving a code family achieves capacity by establishing sharp EXIT function transitions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]