We study sums and products in a field. Let $F$ be a field with $\mathrm{ch}\left(F\right)\ne 2$, where $\mathrm{ch}\left(F\right)$ is the characteristic of $F$. For any integer $k\ge 4$, we show that any $x\in F$ can be written as $a_1+\cdots +a_k$ with $a_1,\cdots ,a_k\in F$ and $a_1\cdots a_k=1$, and that for any $\alpha \in F\setminus \left\{0\right\}$ we can write every $x\in F$ as $a_1\cdots a_k$ with $a_1,\cdots ,a_k\in F$ and $a_1+\cdots +a_k=\alpha$. We also prove that for any $x\in F$ and $k\in \{2,3,\cdots \}$ there are $a_1,\cdots ,a_{2k}\in F$ such that $a_1+\cdots +a_{2k}=x=a_1\cdots a_{2k}$.

This work was presented in part at the 8th International Conference on Finite Fields and Applications Fq^8 , Melbourne, Australia, 9-13 July, 2007.In this paper, we study the ratio θ(n) = λ2 (n) / ψ2 (n), where λ2 (n) is the number of primitive polynomials and ψ2 (n) is the number of irreducible polynomials in GF (2)[x] of degree n. Let n = ∏ pi^ri, i=1,..l be the prime factorization of n. We show that, for fixed l and ri , θ(n) is close to 1 and θ(2n) is not less than 2/3 for sufficiently large...

We consider an equation of the type$$a_1^{}{x}_1^2+\cdots +a_n^{}{x}_n^2=b{x}_1\cdots x_n$$over the finite field ${𝔽}_q={𝔽}_{p^s}$. Carlitz obtained formulas for the number of solutions to this equation when $n=3$ and when $n=4$ and $q\equiv 3(mod4)$. In our earlier papers, we found formulas for the number of solutions when $d=gcd(n-2,(q-1)/2)=1$ or $2$ or $4$; and when $d\>1$ and $-1$ is a power of $p$ modulo $2d$. In this paper, we obtain formulas for the number of solutions when $d=2^t$, $t\ge 3$, $p\equiv 3\text{or}5(mod8)$ or $p\equiv 9(mod16)$. For general case, we derive lower bounds for the number of solutions.

In the present paper we investigate distributional properties of sparse sequences modulo almost all prime numbers. We obtain new results for a wide class of sparse sequences which in particular find applications on additive problems and the discrete Littlewood problem related to lower bound estimates of the $L_1$-norm of trigonometric sums.

Joint 2-adic complexity is a new important index of the cryptographic security for multisequences. In this paper, we extend the usual Fourier transform to the case of multisequences and derive an upper bound for the joint 2-adic complexity. Furthermore, for the multisequences with pn-period, we discuss the relation between sequences and their Fourier coefficients. Based on the relation, we determine a lower bound for the number of multisequences with given joint 2-adic complexity.

Joint 2-adic complexity is a new important index of the cryptographic security for multisequences. In this paper, we extend the usual Fourier transform to the case of multisequences and derive an upper bound for the joint 2-adic complexity. Furthermore, for the multisequences with pn-period, we discuss the relation between sequences and their Fourier coefficients. Based on the relation, we determine a lower bound for the number of multisequences...