Arithmetic Autocorrelation Distribution of Binary m -Sequences

Abstract

Binary <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">m</i> -sequences are those with the largest period <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">n</i> = 2 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><i>m</i></sup> –1 among the binary sequences produced by linear shift registers with length <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">m</i> . They have a wide range of applications in communication since they have several desirable pseudorandom properties, such as balance, uniform pattern distribution, and ideal (classical) autocorrelation. In 1967, Mandelbaum introduced a 2-adic version of classical autocorrelation of binary sequences, called arithmetic autocorrelation, in his research on arithmetic codes. Later, Goresky and Klapper generalized this notion to the nonbinary case and got several properties of arithmetic autocorrelation related to linear shift registers with carry. Recently, Z. Chen et al. showed an upper bound on the arithmetic autocorrelation of binary <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">m</i> -sequences and raised a conjecture on the absolute value distribution of the arithmetic autocorrelation of binary <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">m</i> -sequences. In this paper, we present a general formula for computing arithmetic autocorrelation, from which we completely determine the arithmetic autocorrelation distribution of arbitrary binary <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">m</i> -sequences. In particular, the conjecture raised by Z. Chen et al. is verified.