arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Gary McGuire.
In general, the L-polynomial of a curve of genus $g$ is determined by $g$ coefficients. We show that the L-polynomial of a supersingular curve of genus $g$ is determined by fewer than $g$ coefficients.
In this paper we consider the curves $C_k^{(p,a)} : y^p-y=x^{p^k+1}+ax$ defined over $\mathbb F_p$ and give a positive answer to a conjecture about a divisibility condition on $L$-polynomials of the curves $C_k^{(p,a)}$. Our proof involves finding an exact formula for the number of $\mathbb F_{p^n}$-rational points on $C_k^{(p,a)}$ for all $n$, and uses a result we proved elsewhere about the number of rational points on supersingular curves.
We provide first slope estimates of the Newton polygon of generalized Artin-Schreier curves, which are proved using the action of Frobenius and Verschiebung on cohomology. We provide a number of applications such as an improved Hasse-Weil bound for this class of curves.
We consider the question of when the L-polynomial of one curve divides the L-polynomial of another curve. A theorem of Tate gives an answer in terms of jacobians. We consider the question in terms of the curves. The last author gave an invited talk at the 12th International Conference on Finite Fields and Their Applications on this topic, and stated two conjectures. In this article we prove one of those conjectures.
In this paper we give a different proof of Kuz'min's result on the number of irreducible polynomials with the first two coefficients fixed. Our technique is to relate the question to the number of points on a curve, and to calculate the L-polynomial of the curve.
We consider the representation of primes as a sum of a prime and twice a triangular number. We prove that a subset of the primes having density 1 is expressible in this form. We conjecture that every odd prime number is expressible as a sum of a twin prime and twice a triangular number. We show that this conjecture implies the existence of infinitely many twin primes.
For any positive integers $n\geq 3, r\geq 1$ we present formulae for the number of irreducible polynomials of degree $n$ over the finite field $\mathbb{F}_{2^r}$ where the coefficients of $x^{n-1}$, $x^{n-2}$ and $x^{n-3}$ are zero. Our proofs involve counting the number of points on certain algebraic curves over finite fields, a technique which arose from Fourier-analysing the known formulae for the $\mathbb{F}_2$ base field cases, reverse-engineering an economical new proof and then extending it. This approach gives rise to fibre products of supersingular curves and makes explicit why the formulae have period $24$ in $n$.
We consider the issue of when the L-polynomial of one curve over $\F_q$ divides the L-polynomial of another curve. We prove a theorem which shows that divisibility follows from a hypothesis that two curves have the same number of points over infinitely many extensions of a certain type, and one other assumption. We also present an application to a family of curves arising from a conjecture about exponential sums. We make our own conjecture about L-polynomials, and prove that this is equivalent to the exponential sums conjecture.
The sudoku minimum number of clues problem is the following question: what is the smallest number of clues that a sudoku puzzle can have? For several years it had been conjectured that the answer is 17. We have performed an exhaustive computer search for 16-clue sudoku puzzles, and did not find any, thus proving that the answer is indeed 17. In this article we describe our method and the actual search. As a part of this project we developed a novel way for enumerating hitting sets. The hitting set problem is computationally hard; it is one of Karp's 21 classic NP-complete problems. A standard backtracking algorithm for finding hitting sets would not be fast enough to search for a 16-clue sudoku puzzle exhaustively, even at today's supercomputer speeds. To make an exhaustive search possible, we designed an algorithm that allowed us to efficiently enumerate hitting sets of a suitable size.
We will present many strong partial results towards a classification of exceptional planar/PN monomial functions on finite fields. The techniques we use are the Weil bound, Bezout's theorem, and Bertini's theorem.
This article is about the mathematics of ringing the changes. We describe the mathematics which arises from a real-world activity, that of ringing the changes on bells. We present Rankin's solution of one of the famous old problems in the subject. This article was written in 2003.
In this article, we give a complete description of the characteristic polynomials of supersingular abelian varieties over finite fields. We list them for the dimensions upto 7.
In this paper we derive a recursion for the zeta function of each function field in the second Garcia-Stichtenoth tower when $q=2$. We obtain our recursion by applying a theorem of Kani and Rosen that gives information about the decomposition of the Jacobians. This enables us to compute the zeta functions explicitly of the first six function fields.
Establishing the CCZ-equivalence of a pair of APN functions is generally quite difficult. In some cases, when seeking to show that a putative new infinite family of APN functions is CCZ inequivalent to an already known family, we rely on computer calculation for small values of n. In this paper we present a method to prove the inequivalence of quadratic APN functions with the Gold functions. Our main result is that a quadratic function is CCZ-equivalent to an APN Gold function if and only if it is EA-equivalent to that Gold function. As an application of this result, we prove that a trinomial family of APN functions that exist on finite fields of order 2^n where n = 2 mod 4 are CCZ inequivalent to the Gold functions. The proof relies on some knowledge of the automorphism group of a code associated with such a function.
We prove two results on Kloosterman sums over finite fields, using Stickelberger's theorem and the Gross-Koblitz formula. The first result concerns the minimal polynomial over Q of a Kloosterman sum, and the second result gives a characterisation of ternary Kloosterman sums modulo 27.
One of the big questions in the area of curves over finite fields concerns the distribution of the numbers of points: Which numbers occur as the number of points on a curve of genus $g$? The same question can be asked of various subclasses of curves. In this article we classify the possibilities for the number of points on genus 4 hyperelliptic supersingular curves over finite fields of order $2^n$, $n$ odd.
In this article a technique for constructing $p$-ary bent functions from near-bent functions is presented. Two classes of quadratic $p$-ary functions are shown to be near-bent. Applying the construction of bent functions to these classes of near-bent functions yields classes of non-quadratic bent functions. We show that one construction in even dimension yields weakly regular bent functions. For other constructions, we obtain both weakly regular and non-weakly regular bent functions. In particular we present the first known infinite class of non-weakly regular bent functions.
We study the intersection of two particular Fermat hypersurfaces in $\mathbb{P}^3$ over a finite field. Using the Kani-Rosen decomposition we study arithmetic properties of this curve in terms of its quotients. Explicit computation of the quotients is done using a Gröbner basis algorithm. We also study the $p$-rank, zeta function, and number of rational points, of the modulo $p$ reduction of the curve. We show that the Jacobian of the genus 2 quotient is $(4,4)$-split.