Orthogonal arrays, primitive trinomials, and shift-register sequences (Q1273727)

The purpose of this paper is to investigate shift-register sequences from the viewpoint of orthogonal arrays. The author investigates properties of maximum-length binary shift-register sequences defined by primitive trinomials over \(\mathrm{GF}(2)\). He considers the set \(C_n\) of subintervals of length \(n\) of such a sequence for \(m<n\leq 2m+1\), where \(m\) is the degree of the trinomial. This set is an orthogonal array of strength 2 and is shown to have a property very close to being an orthogonal array of strength 3. The exceptions occur only at those triples of coordinate positions corresponding to the exponents of the characteristic trinomial. The property of \(C_n\) described in the author's Main Theorem is clearly related to the third moment of Hamming weights. As shown in [\textit{J. H. Lindholm}, IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory IT-14, 569-576 (1968)], the third moment can be calculated from the number of trinomials of degree less than \(n\) divisible by \(f\). The author proves that there is no trinomial of degree between \(m\) and \(2m\) divisible by \(f\) other than \(x^kf(x)\) \((1<k<m)\). Also, \(x^mf(x)\) and \(f(x)^2\) are the only trinomials of degree \(2m\) divisible by \(f(x)\). He also discusses general properties of orthogonal arrays.