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Let $\mathbb{F}_q$ be a finite field where $q$ a prime, and consider a multi-variate polynomial in $\mathbb{F}_q[X_1, X_2, \dots, X_\ell]$ of the following form:

$\begin{align}\tag{1} f(X_1, \dots, X_\ell) =\sum_{a_i \in \{0, 1\}, i \in [\ell]}c_{a_1, \dots, a_\ell}X_1^{a_1}X_2^{a_2}\dots X_\ell^{a_\ell}. \end{align}$

Motivation

When $f(X_1,\dots,X_\ell)$ is expressed as in the above form, we need to store $c_{a_1, \dots, a_\ell}$ for all $(a_1, \dots, a_\ell)\in \{ 0, 1\}^\ell$, which would require $O(2^\ell \log q)$ bits in the worst case. However, for every $f(X_1, \dots, X_\ell) \in \mathbb{F}_q[X_1, X_2, \dots, X_\ell]$, if we were able to factor $f(X_1,\dots,X_\ell)$ as

$\begin{align}\tag{2} f(X_1, \dots, X_\ell) =c_0 \cdot \prod_{i \in [\ell]}(X_i + c_i ), \end{align}$

then we would only require $O(\ell \log q)$ bits by storing only $c_0$ and $\{c_i\}_{i \in [\ell]}$. In fact, it would still be useful if the above can be expressed as

$\begin{align}\tag{3} f(X_1, \dots, X_\ell) = \sum_{t = [L]}c_{t,0} \cdot \prod_{i \in [\ell]}(X_i + c_{t,i}), \end{align}$

for a small enough $L$, such as $L=2$ or $L=O(\log \ell)$. In this case we would require $O(\ell L \log q)$ bits.

Question

For every multi-variate polynomial in $\mathbb{F}_q[X_1, X_2, \dots, X_\ell]$ with the restriction that each degree is at most 1, can we express it as Eq.(2) or Eq.(3)??


The reason behind Eq.(3) stems from the fact that, there exit univariate polynomials $f(X)$ over $\mathbb{F}_q[X]$ such that $f(X)$ does not factor into a product of degree one polynomials, e.g., $X^4+1$. Although it is not completely relevant, it seemed to me that there might exist some polynomials $f(X_1, \dots, X_\ell)$ such that it can not be expressed as Eq.(2).

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    I think it is impossible. Basically exactly because there are $q^{2^\ell}$ distinct polynomials of the form (1) and much less of those of form (2). To give concrete examples I would go to the case $q=2$. when we see that (provided $c_0\neq0$) a polynomial $f$ of form (2) has exactly one input where it does not vanish. Similarly a polynomial of the form (3) will have exactly $t$ inputs where it won't vanish. But in this case the class of polynomials of the form (1) gives rise to ALL the functions from $\Bbb{F}_2^n\to\Bbb{F}_2$.2017-02-06
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    @JyrkiLahtonen Thanks! I like the way you showed it through a simple counting type argument. I think you're absolutely right.2017-02-06

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