On the number of roots of some linearized polynomials (Q2187391)

A linearized polynomial over \(\mathbb{F}_{q^n}\) is a polynomial of the form \(\sum_{i=0}^m a_i x^{\sigma^i}\), where \(\sigma\) is a generator of the Galois group \(\mathrm{Gal}(\mathbb{F}_{q^n}, \mathbb{F}_{q}) \) and \(a_i\in\mathbb{F}_{q^n}\). Every linearized polynomial defines an \(\mathbb{F}_{q}\)-linear map from \(\mathbb{F}_{q^n}\) to itself. For two linearized polynomial \(L_1\) and \(L_2\), they define the same \(\mathbb{F}_{q}\)-linear map if and only if \(L_1\equiv L_2\pmod{x^{q^n}-x}\). To determine the rank of the \(\mathbb{F}_q\)-linear map defined by a linearized polynomial \( \sum_{i=0}^{n-1} a_i x^{\sigma^i}\), one may compute the rank of the associated Dickson matrix \[ \begin{pmatrix} a_0 & a_1 & \cdots & a_{n-1} \\ a_{n-1}^\sigma & a_{0}^\sigma & \cdots & a_{n-2}^\sigma \\ \vdots & \vdots & \vdots & \vdots \\ a_{1}^{\sigma^{n-1}} & a_{2}^{\sigma^{n-1}} & \cdots & a_{0}^{\sigma^{n-1}} \end{pmatrix}. \] However, for some linearized polynomials in a special form, one may have easier criteria. In this paper, the authors consider linearized polynomials of the form \[ ax+b_0x^{q^s} + b_1 x^{q^{s+n}} + b_2 x^{q^{s+2n}} + \cdots +b_{t-1} x^{q^{s+n(t-1)}}\in \mathbb{F}_{q^{nt}}[x] \] with \(\gcd(s,n)=1\). They obtain a criterion to determine its rank by dealing with matrices which are much smaller than the associated Dickson matrices and the companion matrices. In the final section, they use this criterion to determine a family of linear sets of the projective line which contains most of the known families of scattered linear sets.