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).     

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 $n=1$.     

Permutation trinomials over Fq3

We consider four classes of polynomials over the fields ${\mathbb{F}}_{q^3}$, $q=p^h$, $p>3$, $f_1(x)=x^{q^2+q-1}+A{x}^{q^2-q+1}+Bx$, $f_2(x)=x^{q^2+q-1}+A{x}^{q^3-q^2+q}+Bx$, $f_3(x)=x^{q^2+q-1}+A{x}^{q^2}-Bx$, $f_4(x)=x^{q^2+q-1}+A{x}^q-Bx$, where $A,B\in {\mathbb{F}}_q$. We find sufficient conditions on the pairs $(A,B)$ for which these polynomials permute ${\mathbb{F}}_{q^3}$ and we give lower bounds on the number of such pairs.     

On eigenfunctions and maximal cliques of generalised Paley graphs of square order

Let GP $(q^2,m)$ be the m-Paley graph defined on the finite field with order $q^2$. We study eigenfunctions and maximal cliques in generalised Paley graphs GP $(q^2,m)$, where $m|(q+1)$. In particular, we explicitly construct maximal cliques of size $\frac{q+1}{m}$ or $\frac{q+1}{m}+1$ in GP $(q^2,m)$, and show the weight-distribution bound on the cardinality of the support of an eigenfunction is tight for the smallest eigenvalue $-\frac{q+1}{m}$ of GP $(q^2,m)$. These new results extend the work of Baker et al. and Goryainov et al. on Paley graphs of square order. We also study the stability of the Erdős-Ko-Rado theorem for GP $(q^2,m)$ (first proved by Sziklai).     

Classification of some quadrinomials over finite fields of odd characteristic

In this paper, we completely determine all necessary and sufficient conditions such that the polynomial $f(x)=x^3+a{x}^{q+2}+b{x}^{2q+1}+c{x}^{3q}$, where $a,b,c\in {\mathbb{F}}_q^{⁎}$, is a permutation quadrinomial of ${\mathbb{F}}_{q^2}$ over any finite field of odd characteristic. This quadrinomial has been studied first in [25] by Tu, Zeng and Helleseth, later in [24] Tu, Liu and Zeng revisited these quadrinomials and they proposed a more comprehensive characterization of the coefficients that results with new permutation quadrinomials, where $char({\mathbb{F}}_q)=2$ and finally, in [16], Li, Qu, Li and Chen proved that the sufficient condition given in [24] is also necessary and thus completed the solution in even characteristic case. In [6] Gupta studied the permutation properties of the polynomial $x^3+a{x}^{q+2}+b{x}^{2q+1}+c{x}^{3q}$, where $char({\mathbb{F}}_q)=3,5$ and $a,b,c\in {\mathbb{F}}_q^{⁎}$ and proposed some new classes of permutation quadrinomials of ${\mathbb{F}}_{q^2}$.In particular, in this paper we classify all permutation polynomials of ${\mathbb{F}}_{q^2}$ of the form $f(x)=x^3+a{x}^{q+2}+b{x}^{2q+1}+c{x}^{3q}$, where $a,b,c\in {\mathbb{F}}_q^{⁎}$, over all finite fields of odd characteristic and obtain several new classes of such permutation quadrinomials.     

Some new results on dimension and Bose distance for various classes of BCH codes

In this paper, we give the dimension and the minimum distance of two subclasses of narrow-sense primitive BCH codes over ${\mathbb{F}}_q$ with designed distance $\delta =a{q}^{m-1}-1(\text{resp. }\delta =a\frac{q^m-1}{q-1})$ for all $1\le a\le q-1$, where q is a prime power and $m>1$ is a positive integer. As a consequence, we obtain an affirmative answer to two conjectures proposed by C. Ding in 2015. Furthermore, using the previous part, we extend some results of Yue and Hu [16], and we give the dimension and, in some cases, the Bose distance for a large designed distance in the range $[a\frac{q^m-1}{q-1},a\frac{q^m-1}{q-1}+T]$ for $0\le a\le q-2$, where $T=q^{\frac{m+1}{2}}-1$ if m is odd, and $T=2q^{\frac{m}{2}}-1$ if m is even.     

Semiclassical resolvent bounds for compactly supported radial potentials

We employ separation of variables to prove weighted resolvent estimates for the semiclassical Schrödinger operator $?h^2\mathrm{\Delta }+V(|x|)?E$ in dimension $n\ge 2$, where $h,E>0$, and $V:[0,\infty )\to \mathbb{R}$ is $L^{\infty }$ and compactly supported. The weighted resolvent norm grows no faster than $\exp ?(C{h}^{?1})$, while an exterior weighted norm grows $～h^{?1}$. We introduce a new method based on the Mellin transform to handle the two-dimensional case.     

Maximal curves and Tate-Shafarevich results for quartic and sextic twists

We study elliptic surfaces corresponding to an equation of the specific type $y^2=x^3+f(t)x$, defined over the finite field ${\mathbb{F}}_q$ for a prime power $q\equiv 3\mathrm{mod}4$. It is shown that if $s^4=f(t)$ defines a curve that is maximal over ${\mathbb{F}}_{q^2}$ then the rank of the group of sections defined over ${\mathbb{F}}_q$ on the elliptic surface is determined in terms of elementary properties of the rational function $f(t)$. Similar results are shown for elliptic surfaces given by $y^2=x^3+g(t)$ using prime powers $q\equiv 5\mathrm{mod}6$ and curves $s^6=g(t)$. Finally, for each of the forms used here, existence of curves with the property that they are maximal over ${\mathbb{F}}_{q^2}$ is discussed, as well as various examples.