On unbalanced Boolean functions with best correlation immunity (Q2309213)

Summary: It is known that the order of correlation immunity of a nonconstant unbalanced Boolean function in \(n\) variables cannot exceed \(2n/3-1\); moreover, it is \(2n/3-1\) if and only if the function corresponds to an equitable \(2\)-partition of the \(n\)-cube with an eigenvalue \(-n/3\) of the quotient matrix. The known series of such functions have proportion \(1:3,3:5\), or \(7:9\) of the number of ones and zeros. We prove that if a nonconstant unbalanced Boolean function attains the correlation-immunity bound and has ratio \(C:B\) of the number of ones and zeros, then \(CB\) is divisible by \(3\). In particular, this proves the nonexistence of equitable partitions for an infinite series of putative quotient matrices. We also establish that there are exactly \(2\) equivalence classes of the equitable partitions of the \(12\)-cube with quotient matrix \([[3,9],[7,5]]\) and \(16\) classes, with \([[0,12],[4,8]]\). These parameters correspond to the Boolean functions in \(12\) variables with correlation immunity \(7\) and proportion \(7:9\) and \(1:3\), respectively (the case \(3:5\) remains unsolved). This also implies the characterization of the orthogonal arrays OA \((1024,12,2,7)\) and OA \((512,11,2,6)\).