On components of vectorial permutations of \(\mathbb{F}_q^n\) (Q2422189)

Let \(\mathbb{F}_q\) be the finite field with \(q\) elements and \(\mathbb{F}_q[x_1,x_2,\ldots, x_n]\) denote the ring of polynomials with \(x_1,x_2,\ldots, x_n\) indeterminates over \(\mathbb{F}_q\). An element \(f\in \mathbb{F}_q[x_1,x_2,\ldots, x_n]\) is a permutation polynomial in \(n\) variables over \(\mathbb{F}_q\) if \(f(x_1,x_2,\ldots, x_n)=a\) has \(q^{n-1}\) solutions in \(\mathbb{F}_q^{n}\) for each \(a\in\mathbb{F}_q\), where \(\deg_{x_j}(f)<q\) for all \(j=1,2,\ldots, n\). A polynomial \(f\in \mathbb{F}_q[x_1,x_2,\ldots, x_n]\) is called a local permutation polynomial if for each \(i\), \(1\le i\le n\), the polynomial \(f(a_1,a_2,\ldots,a_{i-1},x_i,a_{i+1},\ldots, a_n)\) is a permutation polynomial in \(x_i\), for each \(a\in\{a_1,a_2,\ldots,a_{i-1},a_{i+1},\ldots, a_n\}\subseteq \mathbb{F}_q\). A map \(F:\mathbb{F}_q^n\to\mathbb{F}_q^n\) is called a vectorial permutation of \(\mathbb{F}_q^n\) if \[ F(x_1,x_2,\ldots,x_n)=(f_1(x_1,x_2,\ldots,x_n),\ldots, f_n(x_1,x_2,\ldots,x_n)) \] is a permutation of \(\mathbb{F}_q^n\), where polynomials \(f_1, f_2, \ldots, f_n\) are referred as the components of \(F\). Let \(\mathcal{F}\) denote the collection of all vectorial permutations \(F=(f_1,f_2,\ldots, f_n)\) of \(\mathbb{F}_q^n\). The map \(F=(f_1,f_2,\ldots, f_n)\) is called a vectorial local permutation if all permutation polynomials \(f_i\in \mathbb{F}_q[x_1,x_2,\ldots, x_n]\), \(1\le i\le n\) are local permutations. In this paper, authors investigate the degrees of component polynomials \(f_1,\ldots, f_n\) of vectorial permutations \(F=(f_1,f_2,\ldots, f_n)\in\mathcal{F}\) which are not vectorial local permutations. By using the cardinality of the value set of a polynomial and the number of rational points of the curve, they obtain \(\deg(f_i)\ge 2\) for \(1\le i\le n\) when \(2\le \displaystyle{\max_{1\le i\le n}\{\deg(f_i)\}}=d<\sqrt{q}\) and \(q\equiv 1\pmod d\).