Generalized bent functions and their Gray images

Abstract

In this paper we prove that generalized bent (gbent) functions defined on $\mathbb{Z}_2^n$ with values in $\mathbb{Z}_{2^k}$ are regular, and find connections between the (generalized) Walsh spectrum of these functions and their components. We comprehensively characterize generalized bent and semibent functions with values in $\mathbb{Z}_{16}$, which extends earlier results on gbent functions with values in $\mathbb{Z}_4$ and $\mathbb{Z}_8$. We also show that the Gray images of gbent functions with values in $\mathbb{Z}_{2^k}$ are semibent/plateaued when $k=3,4$.