English

Normality of the Thue-Morse function for finite fields along polynomial values

Number Theory 2021-06-24 v1 Combinatorics

Abstract

Let Fq{\mathbb F}_q be the finite field of qq elements, where q=prq=p^r is a power of the prime pp, and (β1,β2,,βr)\left(\beta_1, \beta_2, \dots, \beta_r \right) be an ordered basis of Fq{\mathbb F}_q over Fp{\mathbb F}_p. For ξ=i=1rxiβi,xiFp,\xi=\sum_{i=1}^rx_i\beta_i, \quad \quad x_i\in{\mathbb F}_p, we define the Thue-Morse or sum-of-digits function T(ξ)T(\xi) on Fq{\mathbb F}_q by T(ξ)=i=1rxi. T(\xi)=\sum_{i=1}^{r}x_i.%,\quad \xi=x_1\beta_1+\cdots +x_r\beta_r\in {\mathbb F}_q. For a given pattern length ss with 1sq1\le s\le q, a subset A={α1,,αs}Fq{\cal A}=\{\alpha_1,\ldots,\alpha_s\}\subset {\mathbb F}_q, a polynomial f(X)Fq[X]f(X)\in{\mathbb F}_q[X] of degree dd and a vector c=(c1,,cs)Fps\underline{c}=(c_1,\ldots,c_s)\in{\mathbb F}_p^s we put T(c,A,f)={ξFq:T(f(ξ+αi))=ci, i=1,,s}. {\cal T}(\underline{c},{\cal A},f)=\{\xi\in{\mathbb F}_q : T(f(\xi+\alpha_i))=c_i,~i=1,\ldots,s\}. In this paper we will see that under some natural conditions, the size of~T(c,A,f){\cal T}(\underline{c},{\cal A},f) is asymptotically the same for all~c\underline{c} and A{\cal A} in both cases, pp\rightarrow \infty and rr\rightarrow \infty, respectively. More precisely, we have T(c,A,f)prs(d1)q1/2 \left||{\cal T}(\underline{c},{\cal A},f)|-p^{r-s}\right|\le (d-1)q^{1/2} under certain conditions on d,qd,q and ss. For monomials of large degree we improve this bound as well as we find conditions on d,qd,q and ss for which this bound is not true. In particular, if 1d<p1\le d<p we have the dichotomy that the bound is valid if sds\le d and fails for some c\underline{c} and A{\cal A} if sd+1s\ge d+1. The case s=1s=1 was studied before by Dartyge and S\'ark\"ozy.

Keywords

Cite

@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}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-24T03:29:52.643Z