Nilpotent linearized polynomials over finite fields, revisited (Q6565501)

This paper is about nilpotent linearized polynomials (NLPs) over finite fields defined by Lucas Reis in a former paper. The authors extend previous results by providing further results on NLPs, and explore possible applications, in particular on the construction of permutation polynomials over finite fields whose cycle decomposition can be explicitly given, focusing in the construction of involutions. Moreover, the authors provide a method to construct a large family of involutions over binary fields without fixed points.\N\NSection 1 is dedicated to introduce some concepts as involutions, permutation polynomials, nilpotent linearized polynomials, their conections, and some probable applications. The authors refer a previous paper [\textit{L. Reis}, Finite Fields Appl. 50, 279--292 (2018; Zbl 1400.12003)] as the main paper in this subject. Section 2 is dedicated to preliminary results, where is formally defined linearized polynomials and NLPs. Some properties and examples are provided. In Section 3, extensions of some previous results of the main former paper are provided including a characterization of 2-NLPs that are binomials, where a explicit formula for the number of such polynomials are given. Section 4 is dedicated to the construction of permutation polynomials from NLPs. Similarly to the previous paper, the construction is obtained by adding a particular linear permutation. In contrast to the approach of the former result, in this construction a completely description of the cycle lengths in these permutations are given. Explicit families of trinomials are provided. Section 5 is dedicated to results over finite fields of characteristic two. One of the main results is the one to one correspondence between 2-NLPs and linear involutions over these fields, and some applications including explicit examples of involutions with no fixed points. This section also includes a explicit construction of involutions via pair of trace orthogonal sets \(B, C\); it means \(B, C\) such that \(Tr(b,c)=0, b \in B, c \in C\). At the end of the paper a cryptographic probable application is suggested to explore using the found results.