Carlet's cyclic-additive conjecture for the Kasami monomials

Abstract

Let $K$ be a finite field of characteristic two with $|K| = 2^{n}$, let $\gcd(k,n) = 1$, let $d_{k} = 4^{k} - 2^{k} + 1$ be the Kasami exponent, and let $\Delta_{k} = \{(b+1)^{d_{k}} + b^{d_{k}} + 1 : b \in K\}$ be the image of the normalised derivative of the Kasami monomial in the direction $1$. We show that, for all distinct nonzero $v_{1},v_{2} \in K$, \[ \bigl|\{(x,y,z) \in \Delta_{k}^{3} : v_{1}x + v_{2}y + (v_{1}+v_{2})z = 0\}\bigr| = 2^{2n-3}. \] This establishes the cyclic-additive difference-set condition introduced by Carlet and later posed for the Kasami functions at NSUCRYPTO~2019. Starting from the known half-size property of the derivative image, we express the Fourier correction as twisted root counts and prove their required nonnegativity by an incidence argument on the Fermat cubic. An exact average over the slopes then forces equality pointwise. The argument covers every admissible pair $(n,k)$ and has been formalised and machine-checked in Lean~4 with Mathlib.