A Multi-level Blocking Distinct-degree Factorization Algorithm

230. R. P. Brent and P. Zimmermann, A multi-level blocking distinct-degree factorization algorithm, in Finite Fields and Applications (edited by Gary L. Mullen, Daniel Panario and Igor E. Shparlinski), Contemporary Mathematics, Vol. 461, 2008, 47-58. Presented at the Eighth International Conference on Finite Fields and Applications (Fq8), Melbourne, 9-13 July 2007. Also INRIA Tech. Report RR-6331, Oct. 2007, 16 pp. arXiv:0710.4410v1

Preprint: pdf (184K).

Technical Report: pdf (248K).

Abstract

We give a new algorithm for performing the distinct-degree factorization of a polynomial P(x) over GF(2), using a multi-level blocking strategy. The coarsest level of blocking replaces GCD computations by multiplications, as suggested by Pollard (1975), von zur Gathen and Shoup (1992), and others. The novelty of our approach is that a finer level of blocking replaces multiplications by squarings, which speeds up the computation in GF(2)[x]/P(x) of certain interval polynomials when P(x) is sparse.

As an application we give a fast algorithm to search for all irreducible trinomials xr + xs + 1 of degree r over GF(2), while producing a certificate that can be checked in less time than the full search. Naive algorithms cost O(r2) per trinomial, thus O(r3) to search over all trinomials of given degree r. Under a plausible assumption about the distribution of factors of trinomials, the new algorithm has complexity O(r2 (log r)3/2(log\log r)1/2) for the search over all trinomials of degree r. Our implementation achieves a speedup of greater than a factor of 560 over the naive algorithm in the case r = 24036583 (a Mersenne exponent).

Using our program, we have found two new primitive trinomials of record degree 24036583 over GF(2) (the previous record degree was 6972593). The two new primitive trinomials of degree 24036583 are

x24036583 + x8412642 + 1    and    x24036583 + x8785528 + 1.

Comments

For more recent results, see [235].

For earlier, related results see [199, 214, 233].

For software, see the gf2x package.

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