The PcN power-exponent conjecture over seventh-degree finite fields

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Let pp be an odd prime. For c=−1c=-1, a power function xdx^d over Fp7\mathbb{F}_{p^7} is perfectly cc-nonlinear (PcN) when its cc-differential uniformity is 11.

PcN power-exponent conjecture. For all 0≤j≤60\leq j\leq 6, the only possible values of dd are the elements of

p^j\left\{1,\frac{p^2+1}{2},(p-1)p^6+p^5+(p-2)p^3+(p-1)p^2+p,\frac{p^4+1}{2},\frac{p^6+1}{2}, (p-2)p^6+(p-2)p^5+(p-1)p^4+p^3+p^2+p,\frac{p^7+1}{p+1}\right\}.

Equivalently, these are the only values of dd for which xdx^d is PcN over Fp7\mathbb{F}_{p^7}.

The conjecture is based on exhaustive searches for p=3,5,7p=3,5,7 and seeks to classify all PcN power functions with c=−1c=-1 over seventh-degree extensions; the stated classification remains unproved in general.

References

Primary source

Sartaj Ul Hasan, Mohit Pal, Constanza Riera and Pantelimon Stanica, “On the c-differential uniformity of certain maps over finite fields”, arXiv:2004.09436 (2020).

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