Weight of duals of BCH codes and exponential sums (Q1867476)

Let \(m\) be an odd positive integer, \(q=2^m\), \(\mathbb F_q\) the finite field of \(q\) elements, and \(f\in \mathbb F_q[X]\) a polynomial of degree \(2g+1\). Let \(a\) be the binary weight of \(f\) and assume \(m\geq a \geq 3\). Put \(\mu=\lfloor m/a\rfloor\) and \(M=\lfloor 2^{1-\mu}\sqrt{q}\rfloor\). If (i) \(m\neq 1+2\mu \text{ and } m\neq 3+2\mu,\) (ii) \(\mu\neq m/3 \text{ or } \{2^{1-\mu}\sqrt{q}\}\leq 1-4\cos^2(3\pi/7),\) and (iii) \(\gcd(g,m)=1,\) then the author improves the Moreno-Moreno bound on the exponential sums \[ S(f)=\sum_{x\in \mathbb F_q} \psi(f(x)), \] where \(\psi\) is the additive canonical character of \(\mathbb F_q\), to \[ |S(f)|\leq g2^\mu M-3\cdot 2^\mu. \] (The improvement is the term \(-3\cdot 2^\mu\).) The bound is also true if condition (iii) is substituted by some other conditions. It is well known that bounds for the above character sums yield also bounds on the weights of the words of duals of binary BCH codes of length \(q-1\).