A characterization of primitive polynomials over finite fields. (Q1867484)

The author proves the following result: Let \(p(x)\) be an irreducible polynomial of degree \(k\) over \(\text{GF}(q)\). Set \(m= q^k-1\), and \(g(x)= (x^m- 1)/(x- 1)p(x)\). Then \(p(x)\) is primitive if and only if \(g(x)\) has exactly \((q-1)q^{k- 1}-1\) nonzero terms. Then he applies this to BCH codes of maximal designed distance.