On the boomerang uniformity of a class of permutation quadrinomials over finite fields

Let ${\mathbb{F}}_{2^n}$ be a finite field with $2^n$ elements and $f_{\underset{\_}{c}}(x)=c_0{x}^{2^m(2^k+1)}+c_1{x}^{2^{m+k}+1}+c_2{x}^{2^m+2^k}+c_3{x}^{2^k+1}\in {\mathbb{F}}_{2^n}[x]$, where n, m and k are positive integers with $n=2m$ and $\gcd ?(m,k)=e$. In this paper, motivated by a recent work of Li, Xiong and Zeng (Li et al. (2021) [12]), we further study the boomerang uniformity of $f_{\underset{\_}{c}}(x)$ by using similar ideas and carrying out particular techniques in solving equations over finite fields. As a consequence, we generalize Li, Xiong and Zeng's result from the case of m being odd and $e=1$ to that of both $m/e$ and $k/e$ being odd.     

A note on the distribution of weights of fixed-rank matrices over the binary field

Let M be a random $m\times n$ rank-r matrix over the binary field ${\mathbb{F}}_2$, and let $\mathrm{wt}(\mathbf{M})$ be its Hamming weight, that is, the number of nonzero entries of M.We prove that, as $m,n\to +\infty$ with r fixed and $m/n$ tending to a constant, we have that$\frac{\mathrm{wt}(\mathbf{M})-\frac{1-2^{-r}}{2}mn}{\sqrt{\frac{2^{-r}(1-2^{-r})}{4}(m+n)mn}}$ converges in distribution to a standard normal random variable.     

Large blocking sets in PG(2,q2)

Minimal blocking sets in $\mathrm{PG}(2,q^2)$ have size at most $q^3+1$. This result is due to Bruen and Thas and the bound is sharp, sets attaining this bound are called unitals. In this paper, we show that the second largest minimal blocking sets have size at most $q^3+1-(p-3)/2$, if $q=p$, $p\ge 67$, or $q=p^h$, $p>7$, $h>1$. Our proof also works for sets having at least one tangent at each of its points (that is, for tangency sets).     

Erdős matching conjecture for almost perfect matchings

In 1965 Erd?s asked, what is the largest size of a family of k-element subsets of an n-element set that does not contain a matching of size $s+1$? In this note, we improve upon a recent result of Frankl and resolve this problem for $s>101k^3$ and $(s+1)k?n<(s+1)(k+\frac{1}{100k})$.