English

Primitive Polynomials, Singer Cycles, and Word-Oriented Linear Feedback Shift Registers

Combinatorics 2011-02-10 v2 Information Theory math.IT

Abstract

Using the structure of Singer cycles in general linear groups, we prove that a conjecture of Zeng, Han and He (2007) holds in the affirmative in a special case, and outline a plausible approach to prove it in the general case. This conjecture is about the number of primitive σ\sigma-LFSRs of a given order over a finite field, and it generalizes a known formula for the number of primitive LFSRs, which, in turn, is the number of primitive polynomials of a given degree over a finite field. Moreover, this conjecture is intimately related to an open question of Niederreiter (1995) on the enumeration of splitting subspaces of a given dimension.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0904.1331,
  title  = {Primitive Polynomials, Singer Cycles, and Word-Oriented Linear Feedback Shift Registers},
  author = {Sudhir R. Ghorpade and Sartaj Ul Hasan and Meena Kumari},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0904.1331},
  year   = {2011}
}

Comments

Version 2 with some minor changes; to appear in Designs, Codes and Cryptography.

R2 v1 2026-06-21T12:49:27.452Z