Effective Construction of a Class of Bent Quadratic Boolean Functions

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 $m=2^vpq$

A Computational Search for Cubic-Like Bent Functions

Boolean functions are a central topic in computer science. A subset of Boolean functions, Bent Boolean functions, provide optimal resistance to various cryptographical attack vectors, making them an interesting subject for cryptography, as well as many other branches of mathematics and computer science. In this work, we search for cubic Bent Boolean functions using a novel characterization presented by Carlet & Villa in [CV23]. We implement a tool for the search of Bent Boolean functions and cubic-like Bent Boolean functions, allowing for constraints to be set on the form of the ANF of Boolean functions generated by the tool; reducing the search space required for an exhaustive search. The tool guarantees efficient traversal of the search space without redundancies. We use this tool to perform an exhaustive search for cubic-like Bent Boolean functions in dimension 6. This search proves unfeasible for dimension 8 and higher. We further attempt to find novel instances of Bent functions that are not Maioarana-McFarland in dimension 10 but fail to find any interesting results. We conclude that the proposed characterization does not yield a significant enough reduction of the search space to make the classification of cubic Bent Boolean functions of dimensions 8 or higher viable; nor could we use it to produce new instances of cubic Bent Boolean functions in 10 variables.Masteroppgave i informatikkINF399MAMN-PROGMAMN-IN

Decomposing generalized bent and hyperbent functions

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.Comment: 24 page

Quantum algorithms for highly non-linear Boolean functions

Attempts to separate the power of classical and quantum models of computation have a long history. The ultimate goal is to find exponential separations for computational problems. However, such separations do not come a dime a dozen: while there were some early successes in the form of hidden subgroup problems for abelian groups--which generalize Shor's factoring algorithm perhaps most faithfully--only for a handful of non-abelian groups efficient quantum algorithms were found. Recently, problems have gotten increased attention that seek to identify hidden sub-structures of other combinatorial and algebraic objects besides groups. In this paper we provide new examples for exponential separations by considering hidden shift problems that are defined for several classes of highly non-linear Boolean functions. These so-called bent functions arise in cryptography, where their property of having perfectly flat Fourier spectra on the Boolean hypercube gives them resilience against certain types of attack. We present new quantum algorithms that solve the hidden shift problems for several well-known classes of bent functions in polynomial time and with a constant number of queries, while the classical query complexity is shown to be exponential. Our approach uses a technique that exploits the duality between bent functions and their Fourier transforms.Comment: 15 pages, 1 figure, to appear in Proceedings of the 21st Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms (SODA'10). This updated version of the paper contains a new exponential separation between classical and quantum query complexit