New constructions of involutions over finite fields (Q2179512)

Let \(\mathbb F_q\) be the finite field with \(q\) elements. A polynomial \(f(x)\in\mathbb F_q[x]\) is called an {\em involution} of \(\mathbb F_q\) if \(f(f(a))=a\) for all \(a\in \mathbb F_q\). Involutions of finite fields provide easy decryption algorithms for block ciphers. The paper under review gives several constructions of involutions of \(\mathbb F_{q^2}\) of the form \(x^rh(x^{q-1})\), where \(r=q^2-2\) or \(-q\) and \(h(x)=\gamma(1+\phi(x)+\phi(x)^q)\), where \(\gamma\in\mathbb F_{q^2}^*\) and \(\phi(x)\in\mathbb F_{q^2}[x]\), or \(h(x)=\gamma(x^{a_1}+\beta x^{a_2}+\beta^q x^{a_3})\), where \(\gamma\in\mathbb F_q^*\), \(\beta\in\mathbb F_{q^2}^*\) and \(a_1,a_2,a_3\) are integers satisfying certain conditions. The paper goes on to study permutation polynomials of the form \(f(x)=g(x^{q^i}-x+\delta)+cx\) of \(\mathbb F_{q^m}\), where \(g(x)\in\mathbb F_{q^m}[x]\). The compositional inverse of such a PP is determined. Moreover, it is shown that \(f(x)=g(x^{q^i}-x+\delta)+x\) is an involution of \(\mathbb F_{q^m}\) for all \(\delta\in\mathbb F_{q^m}\) if and only if \(h(x)=g(x)^{q^i}-g(x)+x\) is an involution of \(\mathbb F_{q^m}\) and \(g(h(x^{q^i}-x+\delta))+g(x^{q^i}-x+\delta)=0\) for all \(\delta\) and \(x\) in \(\mathbb F_{q^m}\). The paper also includes a section in which the number of fixed points of the involutions constructed in the paper is computed.