Cubic bent functions outside the completed Maiorana-McFarland class

Abstract

In this paper we prove that in opposite to the cases of 6 and 8 variables, the Maiorana-McFarland construction does not describe the whole class of cubic bent functions in $n$ variables for all $n\ge 10$. Moreover, we show that for almost all values of $n$, these functions can simultaneously be homogeneous and have no affine derivatives.