Pencils of quadratic forms over finite fields

DOI10.1016/J.DISC.2004.01.006MaRDI QIDQ1827772zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Robert W. Fitzgerald, Joseph L. Yucas

Publication date 6 August 2004

Published in Discrete Mathematics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://doi.org/10.1016/j.disc.2004.01.006

zbMATH Keywords

Arf invariantfinite fieldgap formquadratic form

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Exact enumeration problems, generating functions (05A15) Quadratic forms over general fields (11E04)

Review text

The paper starts with a formula for the number \(N(\mathbf{P}=0)\) of common zeros of a non-degenerate pencil \textbf{P} of quadratic forms over a finite field \(F_q\) in terms of the discriminant if \(q\) is odd or Arf invariant if \(q\) is even. Then the authors concentrate on pencils spanned by so-called gap forms. Let \(K\) be a finite extension of the field \(\mathbf{F}_q\) of odd degree \(n=2m+1.\) For each \(1\leq i \leq n-1\) the \(i\)th gap form is the form \(Q_i(\alpha):=\text{tr}(\alpha\alpha^{q^i}).\) The main result says that if \(n=2m+1\) is a prime number, the \(\mathbf{F}_q\)-pencil \textbf{P} on \(K_0:=\ker(\text{tr})\) spanned by gap forms \(Q_{i_1},...,Q_{i_r}\) is non-degenerate and \(n>(q-1)^r\), then \(N(\mathbf{P}=0)\) equals \(q^{m-r}(q^m+q^r-1)\) if \(q\) is a quadratic residue mod\,\(n\) and \(q^{m-r}(q^m-q^r+1)\) otherwise. The authors provide the reader with examples and also give a combinatorial application of the results to counting binary strings with an even number of 1's prescribed distances apart.

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Cites work

• Formes quadratiques et extensions en caractéristique 2. (Quadratic forms and extensions of charactéristic two)
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 3318360 (Why is no real title available?)
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 3336526 (Why is no real title available?)
• Irreducible polynomials over \(\mathrm{GF}(2)\) with three prescribed coefficients.
• Maximal recursive sequences with 3-valued recursive cross-correlation functions (Corresp.)
• Zeros of a pair of quadratic forms defined over a finite field

Cited in

(10)

• Invariants of trace forms over finite fields of characteristic 2
• Pencils of quadratic forms and hyperelliptic function fields
• Highly degenerate quadratic forms over finite fields of characteristic 2
• On serial posets with positive-definite quadratic Tits form.
• Some enumeration results on trace forms of low radical over finite fields of characteristic two
• Highly degenerate quadratic forms over \(\mathbb F_{2}\)
• Piecewise constructions of bent and almost optimal Boolean functions
• Trace forms over finite fields of characteristic 2 with prescribed invariants
• Rank properties of subspaces of symmetric and Hermitian matrices over finite fields
• Classifying quadratic forms over \(\mathbb Z_2\) in three variables

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