Decimations of l-sequences and permutations of even residues mod p

Series
Combinatorics Seminar
Time
Friday, October 29, 2010 - 3:05pm for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 255
Speaker
Todd Cochrane – Math, Kansas State University
Organizer
Prasad Tetali
\ell-sequences are periodic binary sequences {a_i} that arise from Feedback with Carry Shift Registers and in many other ways. A decimation of {a_i} is a sequence of the form {a_{di}}. Goresky and Klapper conjectured that for any prime p>13 and any \ell-sequence based on p, every pair of allowable decimations of {a_i} is cyclically distinct. If true this would yield large families of binary sequences with ideal arithmetic cross correlations. The conjecture is essentially equivalent to the statement that if p>13 then the mapping x \to Ax^d on \mathbb Z/(p) with (d,p-1)=1, p \nmid A, permutes the even residues only if it is the identity mapping. We will report on the progress towards resolving this conjecture, focussing on our joint work with Bourgain, Paulhus and Pinner.