Steven Wang (Carleton University)
An index approach to polynomials over finite fields

The degree of a polynomial is an important parameter in the study of numerous problems on polynomials over finite fields. Recently, a new notion of the index of a polynomial over a finite field is introduced to study the distribution of permutation polynomials over finite fields. This parameter also turns out to be very useful in studying value set size bounds, character sum bounds, among others. In this talk we survey this new index approach and focus on some recent results on constructions of permutation polynomials over finite fields.