Felipe Voloch Preprints

This page contain links to my recent papers, listed below. I have separate pages for old preprints (1993-2000) and for course notes.
My papers before 1993 are unfortunately not available as preprints, some are available on a separate page as scans.
Some of my older papers are also available online, e.g. at the Gottingen Digital Library, Numdam or, if you have access, JSTOR.
If you need to convert a file to a different format that you can view, I recommend using TOM. (Whenever they come back online.)
  1. A Local-Global Criterion for Dynamics on P1, J. Silverman and J. F. Voloch. pdf file pdf.

    Let K be a number field or a one-dimensional function field, we consider a rational map of degree at least two defined over K, and a point P in P1(K) with infinite orbit under the action of the map, and Z a finite set of points. We prove a local-global criterion for the intersection of the orbit of P and the finite set Z. This is a special case of a dynamical Brauer-Manin criterion suggested by Hsia and Silverman.

  2. Breaking the Akiyama-Goto cryptosystem, P. Ivanov and J. F. Voloch. pdf file pdf.

    Akiyama and Goto have proposed a cryptosystem based on rational points on curves over function fields (stated in the equivalent form of sections of fibrations on surfaces). It is easy to construct a curve passing through a few given points, but finding the points, given only the curve, is hard. We show how to break their original cryptosystem by using algebraic points instead of rational points and discuss possibilities for changing their original system to create a secure one.

  3. Conics over function fields and the Artin-Tate conjecture, J. F. Voloch. pdf file pdf. To appear in the Houston Journal of Mathematics.

    We prove that the Hasse principle for conics over function fields is a simple consequence of a provable case of the Artin-Tate conjecture for surfaces over finite fields.

  4. On the order of points on curves over finite fields, J. F. Voloch. pdf file pdf. Appeared in Integers.

    We discuss the problem of constructing elements of multiplicative high order in finite fields of large degree over their prime field. We prove that for points on a plane curve, one of the coordinates has to have high order. We also discuss a conjecture of Poonen for subvarieties of semiabelian varieties for which our result is a weak special case. Finally, we look at some special cases where we obtain sharper bounds.

  5. Multiplicative Order of Gauss Periods O. Ahmadi, I. Shparlinski and J. F. Voloch. pdf file pdf.

    We obtain a lower bound on the multiplicative order of Gauss periods which generate normal bases over finite fields. This bound improves the previous bound of J. von zur Gathen and I. E. Shparlinski.

  6. Average distribution of prime ideals in families of number fields I. Shparlinski and J. F. Voloch. pdf file pdf. To appear in the Boletim da SBM.

    We view an algebraic curve over Q as providing a one-parameter family of number fields and obtain bounds for the average value of some standard prime ideal counting functions over these families which are better than averaging the standard estimates for these functions.

  7. Visible Points on Curves over Finite Fields I. Shparlinski and J. F. Voloch. pdf file pdf. Appeared in Bulletin of PAN.

    For a prime p and an absolutely irreducible modulo p polynomial f(U,V) in Z[U,V] we obtain an asymptotic formulas for the number of solutions to the congruence f(x,y) = a mod p in positive integers x < X, y < Y, with the additional condition gcd(x,y)=1. Such solutions have a natural interpretation as solutions which are visible from the origin. These formulas are derived on average over a for a fixed prime p, and also on average over p for a fixed integer a.

  8. The Brauer-Manin obstruction for subvarieties of abelian varieties over function fields B. Poonen and J. F. Voloch pdf file pdf.

    We prove that for a large class of subvarieties of abelian varieties over global function fields, the Brauer-Manin condition on adelic points cuts out exactly the rational points. This result is obtained from more general results concerning the intersection of the adelic points of a subvariety with the adelic closure of the group of rational points of the abelian variety.

  9. Symmetric Cryptography and Algebraic Curves, J. F. Voloch pdf file pdf.

    We discuss some applications of the theory of algebraic curves to the study of S-boxes in symmetric cryptography.

  10. Algebraic Geometric Codes on Surfaces, J. F. Voloch and M. Zarzar pdf file pdf.

    We study error-correcting codes constructed from projective surfaces over finite fields using the generalized Goppa construction. We obtain bounds for the minimal distance of these codes by understanding how the zero sets of functions on a surface decompose into irreducible components. We also present a decoding algorithm for these codes based on the Luby-Mitzenmacher algorithm for LDPC codes.

  11. Towards Lang-Trotter for Elliptic Curves over Function Fields, C. Hall and J. F. Voloch. Pure and Applied Mathematics Quarterly, to appear pdf file pdf.

    For an elliptic curve over a function field and a subgroup of rank at least six, we prove that the reduction of the subgroup modulo a place v covers the group of points of the curve modulo v for a positive proportion of v's.

  12. Asymptotics of the minimal distance of quadratic residue codes J. F. Voloch. pdf file pdf. Appeared in the Oberwolfach reports

    For infinitely many primes p, the minimal distance of the binary quadratic residue code of length p is O(p/log log p).

  13. Efficient Computation of Roots in Finite Fields P. Barreto and J. F. Voloch. Designs, Codes and Cryptography, appeared pdf file pdf.

    We present an algorithm to compute r-th roots in a finite field with qm elements with complexity O((log m + rlog q)m2(log q)2) for certain choices of m and q.

  14. Double Circulant Quadratic Residue Codes, T. Helleseth and J. F. Voloch. IEEE Transactions in Information Theory, appeared. pdf file pdf.

    In this note we give a lower bound for the minimal distance of the double circulant binary quadratic residue codes.

  15. Computing the minimal distance of cyclic codes, J. F. Voloch. Computational and Applied Mathematics. appeared pdf file pdf.

    We describe an algorithm that improves on the standard algorithm for computing the minimal distance of cyclic codes.

  16. Weights in Codes and Genus 2 Curves, G. McGuire and J. F. Voloch. Proc. AMS, appeared pdf file pdf.

    We discuss a class of binary cyclic codes and their dual codes. The minimum distance is determined using algebraic geometry, and an application of Weil's theorem. We relate the weights appearing in the dual codes to the number of rational points on a family of genus 2 curves over a finite field.

  17. A note on (k,n)-arcs. J. F. Voloch. Proceedings of the Irsee conference on Finite Geometry, Discrete Mathematics, appeared pdf file pdf.

    We construct (k,n)-arcs in PG(2,q) with k approximately q2/d and n approximately q/d for each divisor d of q-1.

  18. Random diophantine equations, B. Poonen and J. F. Voloch, with appendices by Jean-Louis Colliot-Thélène and Nicholas M. Katz. Appeared in Arithmetic of higher dimensional algebraic varieties, published by Birkhauser. pdf file pdf.

    The main result of this paper is that, in a precise sense, a positive proportion of all hypersurfaces in Pn of degree d defined over Q are everywhere locally solvable, provided that n,d > 1 and (n,d) is not (2,2). This result is motivated by a conjecture discussed in detail in the paper about the proportion of hypersurfaces as above that are globally solvable, i.e., have a rational point.

  19. On some subgroups of the multiplicative group of finite rings, J. F. Voloch. J. de Théorie des Nombres de Bordeaux, appeared. pdf file pdf.

    Let S be a subset of Fq, the field of q elements and h in Fq[x] a polynomial of degree d>1 with no roots in S. Consider the group generated by the image of {x-s | s in S} in the group of units of the ring Fq[x]/(h). In this paper we present a number of lower bounds for the size of this group. Our main motivation is an application to the recent polynomial time primality testing algorithm [AKS]. The bounds have also applications to graph theory and to the bounding of the number of rational points on abelian covers of the projective line over finite fields.

    Contains the results of the short note "Improvements to AKS". pdf file pdf.

  20. Plane curves with many points over finite fields, M. L. Carlin and J. F. Voloch. Rocky Mountain Journal of Math., to appear. pdf file pdf.

    We construct irreducible plane curves over finite fields with p elements, p prime, with degree near p/2 which have d(d+p-1)/2 rational points. We also prove an irreducibility criterion for plane curves.

  21. Homogeneous weights and exponential sums, J. F. Voloch and J. L. Walker. Finite Fields and Appl., appeared. pdf file pdf

    We give a formula as an exponential sum for a homogeneous weight on Galois rings (or equivalently, rings of Witt vectors) and use this formula to estimate the weight of codes obtained from algebraic geometric codes over rings.

  22. On the duals of binary BCH codes. Appeared in IEEE Trans. Info. Theory. TeX or ps or pdf file pdf.

    We give bounds for the minimal distance of duals of binary BCH codes. This is done by bounding the number of points on curves of the type y2-y=f(x) over finite fields of characteristic two.

  23. Constructions of plane curves with many points. F. Rodríguez Villegas, J. F. Voloch and D. Zagier. Appeared in Acta Arithmetica. AMSTeX or Postscript.

    We investigate some plane curves with many points over Q, finite fields and cyclotomic fields.

  24. A note on the arithmetic of differential equations. appeared in Indag. Math. TeX or pdf file pdf.

    In this note we give a method for computing the differential Galois group of some linear second-order ordinary differential equations using arithmetic information, namely the p-curvatures.

  25. Surfaces in P3 over finite fields. Appeared in Contemporary Math. TeX or pdf file pdf.

    We prove that a smooth surface in P3 of degree d, defined over a finite field with q elements, q prime, has at most d(d+q-1)(d+2q-2)/6 + d(11d-24)(q+1) rational points.

  26. Blet, a mathematical puzzle. F. Rodríguez Villegas, L. Sadun and J. F. Voloch. Appeared in the American Math. Monthly. dvi and pdf file pdf.

    The math behind the puzzle Blet.