Rational functions with small value set (Q2204859)

Let \(\mathbb{F}_q\) be the finite field with \(q\) elements, where \(q\) is a power of a prime \(p\). For any rational function \(h(x)\in\mathbb{F}_q(x)\), the authors defined the value set \(V_h\) as follows: \[V_h= \{h(\alpha)\mid\alpha\in \mathbb{F}_q\cup\{\infty\}\}.\] If \(h(x)= \frac{f(x)}{g(x)}\in \mathbb{F}_q(x)\) is a rational function of degree \(d\), that is, \(f(x)\), \(g(x)\in\mathbb{F}_q[x]\) are such that \(\text{gcd}(f(x), g(x))= 1\) and \(d=\max\{\deg f,\deg g\}\), then \[ \left\lceil\frac{q+1}{d}\right\rceil\le \# V_h\le q+1.\tag{1} \] A rational function for which the lower bound in (1) is achieved will be called \textit{minimal value set rational function}. The authors of this paper under review prove several nice results regarding the minimal value set rational functions with algebraic curves and Galois theory.