Division of trinomials by pentanomials and orthogonal arrays (Q2384052)

The authors study a maximum-length binary shift-register sequence generated by a primitive pentanomial \(f\) of degree \(m\). Let \(C_n^f\) denote the set of all subintervals of the sequence with length \(n\) and the zero vector of length \(n.\) It is a linear subspace of dimension \(m\), if \(n>m\). In the case when \(f\) is a trinomial, \textit{A. Munemasa} [Finite Fields Appl. 4, No. 3, 252--260 (1998; Zbl 0978.94037)] proved that \(C_n^f\) is an orthogonal array of strength 2 that has a property very close to being an orthogonal array of strength 3. Munemasa's result was based on his proof that very few trinomials of degree at most \(2m\) are divisible by the given trinomial \(f\). In this paper the authors consider the case \(m<n\leq2m.\) Their main result is that no trinomial of degree at most \(2m\) is divisible by the given pentanomial \(f\), provided that \(f\) is not in a finite list of exceptions. As a corollary, the authors conclude that \(C_n^f\) is an orthogonal array of strength 3, if \(f\) is primitive and does not belong to the list of exceptions.