There are two construction methods of designs from $(n,m)$-bent functions, known as translation and addition designs. In this paper we analyze, which equivalence relation for Boolean bent functions, i.e. $(n,1)$-bent functions, and vectorial bent functions, i.e. $(n,m)$-bent functions with $2\le m\le n/2$, is coarser: extended-affine equivalence or isomorphism of associated translation and addition designs. First, we observe that similar to the Boolean bent functions, extended-affine equivalence of vectorial $(n,m)$-bent functions and isomorphism of addition designs are the same concepts for all even $n$ and $m\le n/2$. Further, we show that extended-affine inequivalent Boolean bent functions in $n$ variables, whose translation designs are isomorphic, exist for all $n\ge6$. This implies, that isomorphism of translation designs for Boolean bent functions is a coarser equivalence relation than extended-affine equivalence. However, we do not observe the same phenomenon for vectorial bent functions in a small number of variables. We classify and enumerate all vectorial bent functions in six variables and show, that in contrast to the Boolean case, one cannot exhibit isomorphic translation designs from extended-affine inequivalent vectorial $(6,m)$-bent functions with $m\in\{ 2,3 \}$.
It is known that partial spreads is a class of bent partitions. In \cite{AM2022Be,MP2021Be}, two classes of bent partitions whose forms are similar to partial spreads were presented. In \cite{AKM2022Ge}, more bent partitions $Γ_{1}, Γ_{2}, Γ_{1}^{\bullet}, Γ_{2}^{\bullet}, Θ_{1}, Θ_{2}$ were presented from (pre)semifields, including the bent partitions given in \cite{AM2022Be,MP2021Be}. In this paper, we investigate the relations between bent partitions and vectorial dual-bent functions. For any prime $p$, we show that one can generate certain bent partitions (called bent partitions satisfying…
Let $n$ be an even positive integer, and $m<n$ be one of its positive divisors. In this paper, inspired by a nice work of Tang et al. on constructing large classes of bent functions from known bent functions [27, IEEE TIT, 63(10): 6149-6157, 2017], we consider the construction of vectorial bent and vectorial plateaued $(n,m)$-functions of the form $H(x)=G(x)+g(x)$, where $G(x)$ is a vectorial bent $(n,m)$-function, and $g(x)$ is a Boolean function over $\mathbb{F}_{2^{n}}$. We find an efficient generic method to construct vectorial bent and vectorial plateaued functions of this form by establi…
We prove new non-existence results for vectorial monomial Dillon type bent functions mapping the field of order $2^{2m}$ to the field of order $2^{m/3}$. When $m$ is odd and $m>3$ we show that there are no such functions. When $m$ is even we derive a condition for the bent coefficient. The latter result allows us to find examples of bent functions with $m=6$ in a simple way.
Bent functions $f: V_{n}\rightarrow \mathbb{F}_{p}$ with certain additional properties play an important role in constructing partial difference sets, where $V_{n}$ denotes an $n$-dimensional vector space over $\mathbb{F}_{p}$, $p$ is an odd prime. In \cite{Cesmelioglu1,Cesmelioglu2}, the so-called vectorial dual-bent functions are considered to construct partial difference sets. In \cite{Cesmelioglu1}, Çeşmelioǧlu \emph{et al.} showed that for vectorial dual-bent functions $F: V_{n}\rightarrow V_{s}$ with certain additional properties, the preimage set of $0$ for $F$ forms a partial differenc…
In this paper we characterize (octal) bent generalized Boolean functions defined on $\BBZ_2^n$ with values in $\BBZ_8$. Moreover, we propose several constructions of such generalized bent functions for both $n$ even and $n$ odd.
In \cite{Bapic, Tang, Zheng} a new method for the secondary construction of vectorial/Boolean bent functions via the so-called $(P_U)$ property was introduced. In 2018, Qi et al. generalized the methods in \cite{Tang} for the construction of $p$-ary weakly regular bent functions. The objective of this paper is to further generalize these constructions, following the ideas in \cite{Bapic, Zheng}, for secondary constructions of vectorial $p$-ary weakly regular bent and plateaued functions. We also present some infinite families of such functions via the $p$-ary Maiorana-McFarland class. Addition…
In this paper we generalize the partial spread class and completely describe it for generalized Boolean functions from $\F_2^n$ to $\mathbb{Z}_{2^t}$. Explicitly, we describe gbent functions from $\F_2^n$ to $\mathbb{Z}_{2^t}$, which can be seen as a gbent version of Dillon's $PS_{ap}$ class. For the first time, we also introduce the concept of a vectorial gbent function from $\F_2^n$ to $\Z_q^m$, and determine the maximal value which $m$ can attain for the case $q=2^t$. Finally we point to a relation between vectorial gbent functions and relative difference sets.
Linear codes with a few weights are an important class of codes in coding theory and have attracted a lot of attention. In this paper, we present several constructions of $q$-ary linear codes with two or three weights from vectorial dual-bent functions, where $q$ is a power of an odd prime $p$. The weight distributions of the constructed $q$-ary linear codes are completely determined. We illustrate that some known constructions in the literature can be obtained by our constructions. In some special cases, our constructed linear codes can meet the Griesmer bound. Furthermore, based on the const…
New families of asymptotically optimal codebooks from vectorial dual-bent functions
Chern Institute of Mathematics and LPMC, Nankai University（南开大学陈省身数学研究所和LPMC）；School of Mathematics, Hefei University of Technology（合肥工业大学数学学院）；School of Mathematical Sciences, Tiangong University（天津理工大学理学院）
In this paper we define the (edge-weighted) Cayley graph associated to a generalized Boolean function, introduce a notion of strong regularity and give several of its properties. We show some connections between this concept and generalized bent functions (gbent), that is, functions with flat Walsh-Hadamard spectrum. In particular, we find a complete characterization of quartic gbent functions in terms of the strong regularity of their associated Cayley graph.
A one to one correspondence between regular generalized bent functions from $\F_2^n$ to $\Z_{2^m},$ and $m-$tuples of Boolean bent functions is established. This correspondence maps self-dual (resp. anti-self-dual) generalized bent functions to $m-$tuples of self-dual (resp. anti self-dual) Boolean bent functions. An application to the classification of regular generalized bent functions under the extended affine group is given.
In this paper, several new classes of Boolean functions with few Walsh transform values, including bent, semi-bent and five-valued functions, are obtained by adding the product of two or three linear functions to some known bent functions.Numerical results show that the proposed class contains cubic bent functions that are affinely inequivalent to all known quadratic ones. Meanwhile, we determine the distribution of the Walsh spectrum of five-valued functions constructed in this paper.
It has been conjectured that there are no homogeneous rotation symmetric bent Boolean functions of degree greater than two. In this paper we begin by proving that sums of short-cycle rotation symmetric bent Boolean functions must contain a specific degree two monomial rotation symmetric Boolean function. We then prove most cases of the conjecture in n=2p, p>2 prime, variables and extend this work to the nonhomogeneous case.
In 2018, Pott, at al. have studied in [IEEE Transactions on Information Theory. Volume: 64, Issue: 1, 2018] the maximum number of bent components of vectorial function. They have presented serval nice results and suggested several open problems in this context. This paper is in the continuation of their study in which we solve two open problems raised by Pott et al. and partially solve an open problem raised by the same authors. Firstly, we prove that for a vectorial function, the property of having the maximum number of bent components is invariant under the so-called CCZ equivalence. Secondl…
We consider negabent Boolean functions that have Trace representation. We completely characterize quadratic negabent monomial functions. We show the relation between negabent functions and bent functions via a quadratic function. Using this characterization, we give infinite classes of bent-negabent Boolean functions over the finite field $\F_{2^n}$, with the maximum possible degree, $n \over 2$. These are the first ever constructions of negabent functions with trace representation that have optimal degree.
In this paper, we consider the characterization of the bentness of quadratic Boolean functions of the form $f(x)=\sum_{i=1}^{\frac{m}{2}-1} Tr^n_1(c_ix^{1+2^{ei}})+ Tr_1^{n/2}(c_{m/2}x^{1+2^{n/2}}) ,$ where $n=me$, $m$ is even and $c_i\in GF(2^e)$. For a general $m$, it is difficult to determine the bentness of these functions. We present the bentness of quadratic Boolean function for two cases: $m=2^vp^r$ and $m=2^vpq$, where $p$ and $q$ are two distinct primes. Further, we give the enumeration of quadratic bent functions for the case $m=2^vpq$.
Generalisations of the bent property of a boolean function are presented, by proposing spectral analysis with respect to a well-chosen set of local unitary transforms. Quadratic boolean functions are related to simple graphs and it is shown that the orbit generated by successive Local Complementations on a graph can be found within the transform spectra under investigation. The flat spectra of a quadratic boolean function are related to modified versions of its associated adjacency matrix.
The notion of o-polynomial comes from finite projective geometry. In 2011 and later, it has been shown that those objects play an important role in symmetric cryptography and coding theory to design bent Boolean functions, bent vectorial Boolean functions, semi-bent functions and to construct good linear codes. In this note, we characterize o-polynomials by the Walsh transform of the associated vectorial functions.
Recently, much progress has been made to construct minimal linear codes due to their preference in secret sharing schemes and secure two-party computation. In this paper, we put forward a new method to construct minimal linear codes by using vectorial Boolean functions. Firstly, we give a necessary and sufficient condition for a generic class of linear codes from vectorial Boolean functions to be minimal. Based on that, we derive some new three-weight minimal linear codes and determine their weight distributions. Secondly, we obtain a necessary and sufficient condition for another generic clas…
Vectorial Boolean functions are crucial building blocks in symmetric ciphers. Different known attacks on block ciphers have resulted in diverse cryptographic criteria of vectorial Boolean functions,such as differential distribution table and nonlinearity. Very recently, Bar-On et al. introduced at Eurocrypt'19 a new tool, called the Differential-Linear Connectivity Table (DLCT).This paper is a follow-up work, which presents further theoretical characterization of the DLCT of vectorial Boolean functions and also investigates this new criterion of functions with certain forms. In this paper we i…
In this paper we study the relationship between vectorial (Boolean) functions and cyclic codes in the context of algebraic attacks. We first derive a direct link between the annihilators of a vectorial function (in univariate form) and certain $2^{n}$-ary cyclic codes (which we prove that they are LCD codes) extending results due to Rønjom and Helleseth. The knowledge of the minimum distance of those codes gives rise to a lower bound on the algebraic immunity of the associated vectorial function. Furthermore, we solve an open question raised by Mesnager and Cohen. We also present some properti…
On quadratic binomial vectorial functions with maximal bent components
Anhui Agricultural University（安徽农业大学）；University of Science and Technology of China（中国科学技术大学）；Hefei National Laboratory（合肥国家实验室）；Hefei University of Technology（合肥工业大学）；State Key Laboratory of Cyberspace Security Defense, Institute of Information Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院信息工程研究所网络空间安全防御国家重点实验室）
Propagation criterion of degree $l$ and order $k$ ($PC(l)$ of order $k$) and resiliency of vectorial Boolean functions are important for cryptographic purpose (see [1, 2, 3,6, 7,8,10,11,16]. Kurosawa, Stoh [8] and Carlet [1] gave a construction of Boolean functions satisfying $PC(l)$ of order $k$ from binary linear or nonlinear codes in. In this paper, algebraic-geometric codes over $GF(2^m)$ are used to modify Carlet and Kurosawa-Satoh's construction for giving vectorial resilient Boolean functions satisfying $PC(l)$ of order $k$. The new construction is compared with previously known results…
Vectorial Boolean functions are crucial building-blocks in symmetric ciphers. Different known attacks on block ciphers have resulted in diverse cryptographic criteria for vectorial Boolean functions, such as differential uniformity and nonlinearity. Very recently, Bar-On et al. introduced at Eurocrypt'19 a new tool, called the differential-linear connectivity table (DLCT), which allows for taking into account the dependency between the two subciphers $E_0$ and $E_1$ involved in differential-linear attacks. This new notion leads to significant improvements of differential-linear attacks on seve…
Binary linear codes with good parameters have important applications in secret sharing schemes, authentication codes, association schemes, and consumer electronics and communications. In this paper, we construct several classes of binary linear codes from vectorial Boolean functions and determine their parameters, by further studying a generic construction developed by Ding \emph{et al.} recently. First, by employing perfect nonlinear functions and almost bent functions, we obtain several classes of six-weight linear codes which contains the all-one codeword. Second, we investigate a subcode o…
In the first part of this paper [16], some results on how to compute the flat spectra of Boolean constructions w.r.t. the transforms {I,H}^n, {H,N}^n and {I,H,N}^n were presented, and the relevance of Local Complementation to the quadratic case was indicated. In this second part, the results are applied to develop recursive formulae for the numbers of flat spectra of some structural quadratics. Observations are made as to the generalised Bent properties of boolean functions of algebraic degree greater than two, and the number of flat spectra w.r.t. {I,H,N}^n are computed for some of them.
We study compositional inverses of permutation polynomials, complete mappings, mutually orthogonal Latin squares, and bent vectorial functions. Recently it was obtained in [33] the compositional inverses of linearized permutation binomials over finite fields. It was also noted in [29] that computing inverses of bijections of subspaces have applications in determining the compositional inverses of certain permutation classes related to linearized polynomials. In this paper we obtain compositional inverses of a class of linearized binomials permuting the kernel of the trace map. As an applicatio…
Bent functions, which are maximally nonlinear Boolean functions with even numbers of variables and whose Hamming distance to the set of all affine functions equals $2^{n-1}\pm 2^{\frac{n}{2}-1}$, were introduced by Rothaus in 1976 when he considered problems in combinatorics. Bent functions have been extensively studied due to their applications in cryptography, such as S-box, block cipher and stream cipher. Further, they have been applied to coding theory, spread spectrum and combinatorial design. Hyper-bent functions, as a special class of bent functions, were introduced by Youssef and Gong …
In this paper we introduce generalized hyperbent functions from $F_{2^n}$ to $Z_{2^k}$, and investigate decompositions of generalized (hyper)bent functions. We show that generalized (hyper)bent functions from $F_{2^n}$ to $Z_{2^k}$ consist of components which are generalized (hyper)bent functions from $F_{2^n}$ to $Z_{2^{k^\prime}}$ for some $k^\prime < k$. For odd $n$, we show that the Boolean functions associated to a generalized bent function form an affine space of semibent functions. This complements a recent result for even $n$, where the associated Boolean functions are bent.
For any positive integers $n=2k$ and $m$ such that $m\geq k$, in this paper we show the maximal number of bent components of any $(n,m)$-functions is equal to $2^{m}-2^{m-k}$, and for those attaining the equality, their algebraic degree is at most $k$. It is easily seen that all $(n,m)$-functions of the form $G(x)=(F(x),0)$ with $F(x)$ being any vectorial bent $(n,k)$-function, have the maximum number of bent components. Those simple functions $G$ are called trivial in this paper. We show that for a power $(n,n)$-function, it has such large number of bent components if and only if it is trivia…
The number of $n$-ary bent functions is less than $2^{3\cdot2^{n-3}(1+o(1))}$ as $n$ is even and $n\rightarrow\infty$. Keywords: Boolean function, bent function, upper bound
We present necessary and sufficient conditions for a Boolean function to be a negabent function for both even and odd number of variables, which demonstrate the relationship between negabent functions and bent functions. By using these necessary and sufficient conditions for Boolean functions to be negabent, we obtain that the nega spectrum of a negabent function has at most 4 values. We determine the nega spectrum distribution of negabent functions. Further, we provide a method to construct bent-negabent functions in $n$ variables ($n$ even) of algebraic degree ranging from 2 to $\frac{n}{2}$…
In this work, we employ the concept of {\em composite representation} of Boolean functions, which represents an arbitrary Boolean function as a composition of one Boolean function and one vectorial function, for the purpose of specifying new secondary constructions of bent/plateaued functions. This representation gives a better understanding of the existing secondary constructions and it also allows us to provide a general construction framework of these objects. This framework essentially gives rise to an {\em infinite number} of possibilities to specify such secondary construction methods (w…
Bent Functions and the Completed Maiorana-McFarland Class
University of Primorska, FAMNIT & IAM（波希米亚大学 FAMNIT 与 IAM）；Otto von Guericke University（奥托·冯·格里克大学）；School of Cyber Engineering, Xidian University（西安电子科技大学网络空间安全学院）
In difference to many recent articles that deal with generalized bent (gbent) functions $f:\mathbb{Z}_2^n \rightarrow \mathbb{Z}_q$ for certain small valued $q\in \{4,8,16 \}$, we give a complete description of these functions for both $n$ even and odd and for any $q=2^k$ in terms of both the necessary and sufficient conditions their component functions need to satisfy. This enables us to completely characterize gbent functions as algebraic objects, namely as affine spaces of bent or semi-bent functions with interesting additional properties, which we in detail describe. We also specify the du…
The characterization and construction of bent functions are challenging problems. The paper generalizes the constructions of Boolean bent functions by Mesnager \cite{M2014}, Xu et al. \cite{XCX2015} and $p$-ary bent functions by Xu et al. \cite{XC2015} to the construction of $p$-ary weakly regular bent functions and presents new infinite families of $p$-ary weakly regular bent functions from some known weakly regular bent functions (square functions, Kasami functions, and the Maiorana-McFarland class of bent functions). Further, new infinite families of $p$-ary bent idempotents are obtained.
Let $n=2m$. In the present paper, we study the binomial Boolean functions of the form $$f_{a,b}(x) = \mathrm{Tr}_1^{n}(a x^{2^m-1 }) +\mathrm{Tr}_1^{2}(bx^{\frac{2^n-1}{3} }), $$ where $m$ is an even positive integer, $a\in \mathbb{F}_{2^n}^*$ and $b\in \mathbb{F}_4^*$. We show that $ f_{a,b}$ is a bent function if the Kloosterman sum $$K_{m}\left(a^{2^m+1}\right)=1+ \sum_{x\in \mathbb{F}_{2^m}^*} (-1)^{\mathrm{Tr}_1^{m}(a^{2^m+1} x+ \frac{1}{x})}$$ equals $4$, thus settling an open problem of Mesnager. The proof employs tools including computing Walsh coefficients of Boolean functions via mul…
In this paper we define a class of Boolean and generalized Boolean functions defined on $\mathbb{F}_2^n$ with values in $\mathbb{Z}_q$ (mostly, we consider $q=2^k$), which we call landscape functions (whose class containing generalized bent, semibent, and plateaued) and find their complete characterization in terms of their components. In particular, we show that the previously published characterizations of generalized bent and plateaued Boolean functions are in fact particular cases of this more general setting. Furthermore, we provide an inductive construction of landscape functions, having…
Boolean functions with high algebraic immunity are important cryptographic primitives in some stream ciphers. In this paper, two methodologies for constructing binary minimal codes from sets, Boolean functions and vectorial Boolean functions with high algebraic immunity are proposed. More precisely, a general construction of new minimal codes using minimal codes contained in Reed-Muller codes and sets without nonzero low degree annihilators is presented. The other construction allows us to yield minimal codes from certain subcodes of Reed-Muller codes and vectorial Boolean functions with high …
In 2008, Langevin and Leander determined the dual function of three classes of monomial bent functions with the help of Stickelberger's theorem: Dillon, Gold and Kasami. In their paper, they proposed one very strong condition such that their method works, and showed that both Gold exponent and Kasami exponent satisfy this condition. In 2018, Pott {\em et al.} investigated the issue of vectorial functions with maximal number of bent components. They found one class of binomial functions which attains the upper bound. They also proposed an open problem regarding monomial function with maximal nu…
It is presently shown that the Deutsch-Jozsa algorithm is connected to the concept of bent function. Particularly, it is noticeable that the quantum circuit used to denote the well known quantum algorithm is by itself the quantum computer which performs the Walsh transform of a Boolean function. Consequently, the output from Deutsch-Jozsa algorithm, when the hidden function is bent, corresponds to a flat spectrum of quantum states.
The study of non-linearity (linearity) of Boolean function was initiated by Rothaus in 1976. The classical non-linearity of a Boolean function is the minimum Hamming distance of its truth table to that of affine functions. In this note we introduce new "multidimensional" non-linearity parameters $(N_f,H_f)$ for conventional and vectorial Boolean functions $f$ with $m$ coordinates in $n$ variables. The classical non-linearity may be treated as a 1-dimensional parameter in the new definition. $r$-dimensional parameters for $r\geq 2$ are relevant to possible multidimensional extensions of the Fas…
The necessary and sufficient conditions for a class of functions $f:\mathbb{Z}_2^n \rightarrow \mathbb{Z}_q$, where $q \geq 2$ is an even positive integer, have been recently identified for $q=4$ and $q=8$. In this article we give an alternative characterization of the generalized Walsh-Hadamard transform in terms of the Walsh spectra of the component Boolean functions of $f$, which then allows us to derive sufficient conditions that $f$ is generalized bent for any even $q$. The case when $q$ is not a power of two, which has not been addressed previously, is treated separately and a suitable r…
Let $m$ be an even positive integer. A Boolean bent function $f$ on $\GF{m-1} \times \GF {}$ is called a \emph{cyclic bent function} if for any $a\neq b\in \GF {m-1}$ and $ε\in \GF{}$, $f(ax_1,x_2)+f(bx_1,x_2+ε)$ is always bent, where $x_1\in \GF {m-1}, x_2 \in \GF {}$. Cyclic bent functions look extremely rare. This paper focuses on cyclic bent functions on $\GF {m-1} \times \GF {}$ and their applications. The first objective of this paper is to construct a new class of cyclic bent functions, which includes all known constructions of cyclic bent functions as special cases. The second objectiv…
Two-to-one ($2$-to-$1$) mappings over finite fields play an important role in symmetric cryptography. In particular they allow to design APN functions, bent functions and semi-bent functions. In this paper we provide a systematic study of two-to-one mappings that are defined over finite fields. We characterize such mappings by means of the Walsh transforms. We also present several constructions, including an AGW-like criterion, constructions with the form of $x^rh(x^{(q-1)/d})$, those from permutation polynomials, from linear translators and from APN functions. Then we present $2$-to-$1$ polyn…
