On the boomerang uniformity of permutations of low Carlitz rank

Abstract

Finding permutation polynomials with low differential and boomerang uniformity is an important topic in S-box designs of many block ciphers. For example, AES chooses the inverse function as its S-box, which is differentially 4-uniform and boomerang 6-uniform. Also there has been considerable research on many non-quadratic permutations which are modifications of the inverse function. In this paper, we give a novel approach which shows that plenty of existing modifications of the inverse function are in fact affine equivalent to permutations of low Carlitz rank, and those modifications cannot be APN. We also present the complete list of permutations of Carlitz rank 3 having the boomerang uniformity six, and give the complete classification of the differential uniformities of permutations of Carlitz rank 3. As an application, we provide all the involutions of Carlitz rank 3 having the boomerang uniformity six. © 2022 The Author(s)