An efficient characterization of a family of hyper-bent functions with multiple trace terms

Abstract

The connection between exponential sums and algebraic varieties has been known for at least six decades. Recently, Lison?ek exploited it to reformulate the Charpin-Gong characterization of a large class of hyper-bent functions in terms of numbers of points on hyperelliptic curves. As a consequence, he obtained a polynomial time and space algorithm for certain subclasses of functions in the Charpin-Gong family. In this paper, we settle a more general framework, together with detailed proofs, for such an approach and show that it applies naturally to a distinct family of functions proposed by Mesnager. Doing so, a polynomial time and space test for the hyper-bentness of functions in this family is obtained as well. Nonetheless, a straightforward application of such results does not provide a satisfactory criterion for explicit generation of functions in the Mesnager family. To address this issue, we show how to obtain a more efficient test leading to a substantial practical gain. We finally elaborate on an open problem about hyperelliptic curves related to a family of Boolean functions studied by Charpin and Gong. © 2013 de Gruyter.