Let Fq be the finite field of q elements, where q=pr is a power of the prime p, and (β1,β2,…,βr) be an ordered basis of Fq over Fp. For ξ=i=1∑rxiβi,xi∈Fp, we define the Thue-Morse or sum-of-digits function T(ξ) on Fq by T(ξ)=i=1∑rxi. For a given pattern length s with 1≤s≤q, a subset A={α1,…,αs}⊂Fq, a polynomial f(X)∈Fq[X] of degree d and a vector c=(c1,…,cs)∈Fps we put T(c,A,f)={ξ∈Fq:T(f(ξ+αi))=ci,i=1,…,s}. In this paper we will see that under some natural conditions, the size of~T(c,A,f) is asymptotically the same for all~c and A in both cases, p→∞ and r→∞, respectively. More precisely, we have ∣T(c,A,f)∣−pr−s≤(d−1)q1/2 under certain conditions on d,q and s. For monomials of large degree we improve this bound as well as we find conditions on d,q and s for which this bound is not true. In particular, if 1≤d<p we have the dichotomy that the bound is valid if s≤d and fails for some c and A if s≥d+1. The case s=1 was studied before by Dartyge and S\'ark\"ozy.
@article{arxiv.2106.12218,
title = {Normality of the Thue-Morse function for finite fields along polynomial values},
author = {Mehdi Makhul and Arne Winterhof},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2106.12218},
year = {2021}
}