Characterisation and enumeration of a class of semi-bent quadratic Boolean functions

Abstract

In this paper, we consider semi-bentness of quadratic Boolean functions defined for even n and give the characterisation of these functions. Up to our knowledge, semi-bentness of this class has not been investigated before and we proved that semi-bent functions of this form exist only for 6|n. Furthermore, we present a method for enumeration of semi-bent and bent functions in certain classes. Using this method we find the exact number of semi-bent functions of this form. Moreover, we complete some previous partial and incomplete enumeration results for three other classes of semi-bent/bent functions in the literature using this method. We also correct some results on quadratic bent functions stated in Ma et al.