Generalization of a class of APN binomials to Gold-like functions (Q2232220)

This paper provides a family of differentially \(2^t\)-uniform functions. These families are obtained by relaxing the conditions on families of APN binomial functions over \(\mathbb{F}_{2^n}\) discovered by \textit{L. Budaghyan} et al. [IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory 54, No. 9, 4218--4229 (2008; Zbl 1177.94135)]. The paper is organized as follows: In section 2, a preliminary section, basic concepts and results of differentially \(\delta\)-uniform functions \(f: \mathbb{F}_{2^n} \rightarrow \mathbb{F}_{2^m}\) is included. In section 3, the main result of the paper is theorem 1. In this theorem, the differential uniformity of the family of functions: \(F(x)=wx^{2^s+1}+w^{2^k}x^{2^{ik}+2^{mk+s}}\), \(F: \mathbb{F}_{2^n} \rightarrow \mathbb{F}_{2^n}\), is computed for \(n=4k\), and appropriate positive integers \(s,k,t\). This is done by computing the directional derivative of \(f\) and analyzing the kernel of a linear map \(\Delta_a(x)\) related to this derivative. Using the Dobbertin's multivariate method, the authors show that this kernel has \(2^t\) elements, which subsequently implies that \(F\) is differentially \(2^t\)- uniform. In this section, the authors also show that the family \(F\) behave in the same fashion that Gold functions in the sense that they are permutations if and only if they are EA-equivalent to Gold permutation functions \(x^{2^s+1}\) for a positive integer \(s\). Section 4 is dedicated to analyze the Walsh spectrum of the studied families of functions. An upper bound of Walsh coefficients is found in theorem 2, and, as a corollary, an upper bound of the non-linearity is established. Finally, in section 5, the authors argue that this generalization from APN functions to differentially \(2^t\)-uniform functions, by relaxing the conditions of its parameters, in a similar way in theorem 1, no always work. They show this by using a family of known APN quadrinomials, and testing computationally that they do not produce families of differentially \(2^t\)- uniform functions. For the entire collection see [Zbl 1470.11003].