Surfaces and the weight distribution of a family of codes (Q4345644)

The main result is the derivation of the weight distribution of the binary trace code of length \(q^2\) given by \[ C= \biggl\{c(a,b,c) =\bigl(Tr(ax^{q+1} +bx^3+ cx)_{x\in \mathbb{F}^*_{q^2}} \bigr): a,b,c \in\mathbb{F}_{q^2} \biggr\} \] where \(Tr\) denotes the trace map from \(\mathbb{F}_{q^2}\) to \(\mathbb{F}_2\). The technique is based upon quadratic forms combined with calculations of the number of points in the intersetion between certain surfaces. The Hamming weight of \(c(a,b,c)\), \(w(c(a,b,c))\) is strongly related to the exponential sum \[ S(a,b,c)= \sum_{x\in\mathbb{F}_{q^2}} (-1)^{Tr(ax^{q+1} +bx^3+cx)}, \] via \(w(c(a,b,c)= (q^2-S(a,b, c))/2\). Therefore, from the weight distribution of \(C\) the distribution of the values of \(S(a,b,c)\) can be found. In particular, the author generalizes and improves earlier results on this exponential sum. In particular, the following bound is obtained for \((a,b,c)\notin F_q\times \{0\} \times \{0\}\): \[ \bigl|S(a,b,c)\bigr |\leq 4q\quad \text{for }m \text{ odd, }m\geq 3, \tag{1} \] \[ \bigl|S(a,b,c) \bigr|\leq 2q\quad \text{for }m \text{ even, } m\geq 4. \tag{2.} \]