Classification of cyclic codes over a non-Galois chain ring Zp[u]/〈u3〉

We explicitly determine generators of cyclic codes over a non-Galois finite chain ring ${\mathbb{Z}}_p[u]/〈u^3〉$ of length $p^k$, where p is a prime number and k is a positive integer. We completely classify that there are three types of principal ideals of ${\mathbb{Z}}_p[u]/〈u^3〉$ and four types of non-principal ideals of ${\mathbb{Z}}_p[u]/〈u^3〉$, which are associated with cyclic codes over ${\mathbb{Z}}_p[u]/〈u^3〉$ of length $p^k$. We then obtain a mass formula for cyclic codes over ${\mathbb{Z}}_p[u]/〈u^3〉$ of length $p^k$.     

On invariant fields of vectors and covectors

Let ${\mathbb{F}}_q$ be the finite field of order q. Let G be one of the three groups $\mathrm{GL}(n,{\mathbb{F}}_q)$, $\mathrm{SL}(n,{\mathbb{F}}_q)$ or $\mathrm{U}(n,{\mathbb{F}}_q)$ and let W be the standard n-dimensional representation of G. For non-negative integers m and d we let $mW\oplus d{W}^{?}$ denote the representation of G given by the direct sum of m vectors and d covectors. We exhibit a minimal set of homogeneous invariant polynomials $\{{?}_1,{?}_2,\dots ,{?}_{(m+d)n}\}?{\mathbb{F}}_q{[mW\oplus d{W}^{?}]}^G$ such that ${\mathbb{F}}_q{(mW\oplus d{W}^{?})}^G={\mathbb{F}}_q({?}_1,{?}_2,\dots ,{?}_{(m+d)n})$ for all cases except when $md=0$ and $G=\mathrm{GL}(n,{\mathbb{F}}_q)$ or $\mathrm{SL}(n,{\mathbb{F}}_q)$.     

New results on permutation binomials of finite fields

After a brief review of the existing results on permutation binomials of finite fields, we introduce the notion of equivalence among permutation binomials (PBs) and describe how to bring a PB to its canonical form under equivalence. We then focus on PBs of ${\mathbb{F}}_{q^2}$ of the form $X^n(X^{d(q-1)}+a)$, where n and d are positive integers and $a\in {\mathbb{F}}_{q^2}^{⁎}$. Our contributions include two nonexistence results: (1) If q is even and sufficiently large and $a^{q+1}\ne 1$, then $X^n(X^{3(q-1)}+a)$ is not a PB of ${\mathbb{F}}_{q^2}$. (2) If $2\le d|q+1$, q is sufficiently large and $a^{q+1}\ne 1$, then $X^n(X^{d(q-1)}+a)$ is not a PB of ${\mathbb{F}}_{q^2}$ under certain additional conditions. (1) partially confirms a recent conjecture by Tu et al. (2) is an extension of a previous result with $n=1$.     

Paley-like graphs over finite fields from vector spaces

Motivated by the well-known Paley graphs over finite fields and their generalizations, in this paper we explore a natural multiplicative-additive analogue of such graphs arising from vector spaces over finite fields. Namely, if $n\ge 2$ and $U⊊{\mathbb{F}}_{q^n}$ is an ${\mathbb{F}}_q$-vector space, $G_U$ is the (undirected) graph with vertex set $V(G_U)={\mathbb{F}}_{q^n}$ and edge set $E(G_U)=\{(a,b)\in {\mathbb{F}}_{q^n}^2|a\ne b,ab\in U\}$. We describe the structure of an arbitrary maximal clique in $G_U$ and provide bounds on the clique number $\omega (G_U)$ of $G_U$. In particular, we compute the largest possible value of $\omega (G_U)$ for arbitrary q and n. Moreover, we obtain the exact value of $\omega (G_U)$ when $U⊊{\mathbb{F}}_{q^n}$ is any ${\mathbb{F}}_q$-vector space of dimension $d_U\in \{1,2,n-1\}$.     

Perfect squares representing the number of rational points on elliptic curves over finite field extensions

Let q be a perfect power of a prime number p and $E({\mathbb{F}}_q)$ be an elliptic curve over ${\mathbb{F}}_q$ given by the equation $y^2=x^3+Ax+B$. For a positive integer n we denote by $\mathrm{\#}E({\mathbb{F}}_{q^n})$ the number of rational points on E (including infinity) over the extension ${\mathbb{F}}_{q^n}$. Under a mild technical condition, we show that the sequence ${\{\mathrm{\#}E({\mathbb{F}}_{q^n})\}}_{n>0}$ contains at most 10²⁰⁰ perfect squares. If the mild condition is not satisfied, then $\mathrm{\#}E({\mathbb{F}}_{q^n})$ is a perfect square for infinitely many n including all the multiples of 12. Our proof uses a quantitative version of the Subspace Theorem. We also find all the perfect squares for all such sequences in the range $q<50$ and $n\le 1000$.     

L-orthogonality in Daugavet centers and narrow operators

We study the presence of L-orthogonal elements in connection with Daugavet centers and narrow operators. We prove that if $\mathrm{dens}(Y)?{\omega }_1$ and $G:X?Y$ is a Daugavet center with separable range then, for every non-empty $w^{?}$-open subset W of $B_{X^{??}}$, it follows that $G^{??}(W)$ contains some L-orthogonal to Y. In the context of narrow operators, we show that if X is separable and $T:X?Y$ is a narrow operator, then given $y\in B_X$ and any non-empty $w^{?}$-open subset W of $B_{X^{??}}$ then W contains some L-orthogonal u so that $T^{??}(u)=T(y)$. In the particular case that $T^{?}(Y^{?})$ is separable, we extend the previous result to $\mathrm{dens}(X)={\omega }_1$. Finally, we prove that none of the previous results holds in larger density characters (in particular, a counterexample is shown for ${\omega }_2$ under the assumption $2^c={\omega }_2$).