Gowers $$U_3$$ norm of some classes of bent Boolean functions

The Gowers \(U_3\) norm of a Boolean function is a measure of its resistance to quadratic approximations. It is known that smaller the Gowers \(U_3\) norm for a Boolean function larger is its resistance to quadratic approximations. Here, we compute Gowers \(U_3\) norms for some classes of Maiorana–McFarland bent functions. In particular, we explicitly determine the value of the Gowers \(U_3\) norm of Maiorana–McFarland bent functions obtained by using APN permutations. We prove that this value is always smaller than the Gowers \(U_3\) norms of Maiorana–McFarland bent functions obtained by using differentially \(\delta \)-uniform permutations, for all \(\delta \ge 4\). We also compute the Gowers \(U_3\) norms for a class of cubic monomial functions, not necessarily bent, and show that for \(n=6\), these norm values are less than that of Maiorana–McFarland bent functions. Further, we computationally show that there exist 6-variable functions in this class which are not bent but achieve the maximum second-order nonlinearity for 6 variables.