Nonlinearity of Quartic Rotation Symmetric Boolean Functions

Nonlinearity of rotation symmetric Boolean functions is an important topic on cryptography algorithm. Let e >= 1 be any given integer. In this paper, we investigate the following question: Is the nonlinearity of the quartic rotation symmetric Boolean function generated by the monomial x(0)x(e)x(2e)x(3e) equal to its weight? We introduce some new simple sub-functions and develop new technique to get several recursive formulas. Then we use these recursive formulas to show that the nonlinearity of the quartic rotation symmetric Boolean function generated by the monomial x(0)x(e)x(2e)x(3e) is the same as its weight. So we answer the above question affirmatively. Finally, we conjecture that if l >= 4 is an integer, then the nonlinearity of the rotation symmetric Boolean function generated by the monomial x(0)x(e)x(2e) ... x(le) equals its weight.