Generating and counting a class of binary Bent sequences which is neither Bent-based nor linear-based (Q1200702)

Let \(Q_ n=\{1,-1\}^ n\), \(H_ 0=1\) and \(H_ m=\left[{H_{m-1}\atop H_{m-1}}{H_{m-1}\atop -H_{m-1}}\right]\) a Hadamard matrix of order \(2^ m\). Let \(x\in Q_{2^{2k}}\); \(x\) is called a Bent sequence if the coefficients of \(H_{2k}\cdot x\), the Walsh-Hadamard transform of \(x\), are all \(\pm 2^ k\). For example, if \(k=2\) there are eight Bent sequences in \(Q_ 4\), \(B_ 4=\{111-1,11-11,1-111,-1111,-1-1-11,-1-11- 1,-11-1-1,1-1-1-1\}\) and the remaining eight sequences in \(Q_ 4\) are linear, \(L_ 4=\{1111,11-1-1,1-11-1,1-1-11,-111-1,-11-11,-1-111,-1- 111\}\). Let \(x=(u^ T_ 1,u^ T_ 2,\dots,u^ T_{2^{2k-2}})^ T\) be a Bent sequence; \(x\) is called Bent-based if \(u_ i\in B_ 4\) for all \(i\) and \(x\) is called linear-based if \(u_ i\in L_ 4\) for all \(i\). \textit{C. M. Adams} and \textit{S. E. Tavares} [IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory 36, No. 5, 1170-1173 (1990)] conjectured: every Bent sequence is either Bent- based or linear-based. This conjecture holds for Bent sequences from \(Q_ 4\) or \(Q_{16}\) but the authors of the present paper construct a class of Bent sequences which is neither Bent-based nor linear-based for \(k\geq 3\).