Improved upper bound on root number of linearized polynomials and its application to nonlinearity estimation of Boolean functions

To determine the dimension of null space of any given linearized polynomial is one of vital problems in finite field theory, with concern to design of modern symmetric cryptosystems. But, the known general theory for this task is much far from giving the exact dimension when applied to a specific linearized polynomial. The first contribution of this paper is to give a better general method to get more precise upper bound on the root number of any given linearized polynomial. We anticipate this result would be applied as a useful tool in many research branches of finite field and cryptography. Really we apply this result to get tighter estimations of the lower bounds on the second order nonlinearities of general cubic Boolean functions, which has been being an active research problem during the past decade, with many examples showing great improvements. Furthermore, this paper shows that by studying the distribution of radicals of derivatives of a given Boolean functions one can get a better lower bound of the second-order nonlinearity, through an example of the monomial Boolean function $g_{\mu}=Tr(\mu x^{2^{2r}+2^r+1})$ over any finite field \GF{n}

On the Systematic Constructions of Rotation Symmetric Bent Functions with Any Possible Algebraic Degrees

In the literature, few constructions of $n$-variable rotation symmetric bent functions have been presented, which either have restriction on $n$ or have algebraic degree no more than $4$. In this paper, for any even integer $n=2m\ge2$, a first systemic construction of $n$-variable rotation symmetric bent functions, with any possible algebraic degrees ranging from $2$ to $m$, is proposed

On lower bounds of second-order nonlinearities of cubic bent functions constructed by concatenating Gold functions

In this paper we consider cubic bent functions obtained by Leander and McGuire (J. Comb. Th. Series A, 116 (2009) 960-970) which are concatenations of quadratic Gold functions. A lower bound of second-order nonlinearities of these functions is obtained. This bound is compared with the lower bounds of second-order nonlinearities obtained for functions belonging to some other classes of functions which are recently studied

Additive autocorrelation of some classes of cubic semi-bent Boolean functions

In this paper, we investigate the relation between the autocorrelation of a cubic Boolean function f\in \cB_n at a \in \BBF_{2^n} and the kernel of the bilinear form associated with $D_{a}f$, the derivative of $f$ at $a$. Further, we apply this technique to obtain the tight upper bounds of absolute indicator and sum-of-squares indicator for avalanche characteristics of various classes of highly nonlinear non-bent cubic Boolean functions

Maiorana-McFarland Functions with High Second-Order Nonlinearity

The second-order nonlinearity, and the best quadratic approximations, of Boolean functions are studied in this paper. We prove that cubic functions within the Maiorana-McFarland class achieve very high second order nonlinearity, which is close to an upper bound that was recently proved by Carlet et al., and much higher than the second order nonlinearity obtained by other known constructions. The structure of the cubic Boolean functions considered allows the efficient computation of (a subset of) their best quadratic approximations

The Good lower bound of Second-order nonlinearity of a class of Boolean function

In this paper we find the lower bound of second-order nonlinearity of Boolean function $f_{\lambda}(x) = Tr_{1}^{n}(\lambda x^{p})$ with $p = 2^{2r} + 2^{r} + 1$, $\lambda \in \mathbb{F}_{2^{r}}^{*}$ and $n = 5r$. It is also demonstrated that the lower bound obtained in this paper is much better than the lower bound obtained by Iwata-Kurosawa \cite{c14}, and Gangopadhyay et al. (Theorem 1, \cite{c12})

The Lower Bounds on the Second Order Nonlinearity of Cubic Boolean Functions

It is a difficult task to compute the $r$-th order nonlinearity of a given function with algebraic degree strictly greater than $r>1$. Even the lower bounds on the second order nonlinearity is known only for a few particular functions. We investigate the lower bounds on the second order nonlinearity of cubic Boolean functions $F_u(x)=Tr(\sum_{l=1}^{m}\mu_{l}x^{d_{l}})$, where $u_{l} \in F_{2^n}^{*}$, $d_{l}=2^{i_{l}}+2^{j_{l}}+1$, $i_{l}$ and $j_{l}$ are positive integers, $n>i_{l}> j_{l}$. Especially, for a class of Boolean functions $G_u(x)=Tr(\sum_{l=1}^{m}\mu_{l}x^{d_{l}})$, we deduce a tighter lower bound on the second order nonlinearity of the functions, where $u_{l} \in F_{2^n}^{*}$, $d_{l}=2^{i_{l}\gamma}+2^{j_{l}\gamma}+1$, $i_{l}> j_{l}$ and $\gamma\neq 1$ is a positive integer such that $gcd(n,\gamma)=1$. \\The lower bounds on the second order nonlinearity of cubic monomial Boolean functions, represented by $f_\mu(x)=Tr(\mu x^{2^i+2^j+1})$, $\mu\in F_{2^n}^*$, $i$ and $j$ are positive integers such that $i>j$, have recently (2009) been obtained by Gode and Gangopadhvay. Our results have the advantages over those of Gode and Gangopadhvay as follows. We first extend the results from monomial Boolean functions to Boolean functions with more trace terms. We further generalize and improve the results to a wider range of $n$. Also, our bounds are better than those of Gode and Gangopadhvay for monomial functions $f_\mu(x)$