Primitive free quartics with specified norm and trace (Q4484463)

Let \(F\) be the finite field GF(\(q\)) of order \(q\), with \(q\) a power of a prime \(p\). Let \(E\) be its extension GF\((q^n)\) of degree \(n\). A generator of the cyclic group \(E^*\) is called a primitive element. When viewed as an \(FG\)-module, \(G\) being the Galois group of \(E\) over \(F\), \(E\) is cyclic and a generator is called a free element of \(E\) over \(F\). In this paper the authors are interested in a refinement of the primitive normal basis theorem. This theorem links the additive and multiplicative structure by stating that there exists an element in \(E\) that is simultaneously primitive and free over \(F\). The authors consider the following related problem. Given a finite extension \(E/F\) of Galois fields, a primitive element \(b\) in \(F\) and a non-zero element \(a\) in \(F\), does there exist a primitive element \(w\) in \(E\) that is free over \(F\), whose \((E,F)\)-norm and trace equal \(b\) and \(a\) respectively ? If this is so for each pair \((a,b)\), then the pair \((q,n)\) corresponding to \(E/F\) is called a PFNT-pair. Earlier the first author [Publ. Math. 56, No. 3--4, 293--312 (2000; Zbl 0961.11043)] has shown that for \(n\geq 5\) every pair \((q,n)\) is a PFNT-pair. The cases with \(n=3,4\) are the most challenging to tackle since the corresponding polynomials have the fewest degrees of freedom. Here the authors deal with quartic polynomials and prove that if \(q\) is a prime power and \(n\geq 4\), then \((q,n)\) is a PFNT-pair. Earlier work depended on expressing the number of elements with the desired properties in terms of Gauss sums over \(E\). Making use of a sieve technique one can then deal with \(n\geq 5\). Here the authors exploit the idiosyncrasies of the situation when \(n=4\) and make use of estimates that no longer depend exclusively on the estimates derived from the initial Gauss sum formulation to deal with the case \(n=4\). The paper is fairly computational in nature and relies also on some computations carried out with the MAPLE package (for \(q=8\) and \(q=32\)).