A polynomial $f$ over a finite field $\mathbb{F}_{q}$ can be classified as a permutation polynomial by the Hermite–Dickson criterion, which consists of conditions on the powers $f^{e}$ for each $e$ from $1$ to $q-2$, as well as the existence of a unique solution to $f(x)=0$ in $\mathbb{F}_{q}$. Carlitz and Lutz gave a variant of the criterion. In this paper, we provide an alternate proof to the theorem of Carlitz and Lutz.

We give an algorithmic generalisation of Dickson’s method of classifying permutation polynomials (PPs) of a given degree $d$ over finite fields. Dickson’s idea is to formulate from Hermite’s criterion several polynomial equations satisfied by the coefficients of an arbitrary PP of degree $d$. Previous classifications of PPs of degree at most 6 were essentially deduced from manual analysis of these polynomial equations, but this approach is no longer viable for $d>6$. Our idea is to calculate some radicals of ideals generated by the polynomials, implemented by a computer algebra system. Our algorithms running in SageMath 8.6 on a personal computer work very fast to determine all PPs of degree 8 over an arbitrary finite field of odd order $q>8$. Such PPs exist if and only if $q\in \{11,13,19,23,27,29,31\}$ and are explicitly listed in normalised form.

In this paper, we construct several new permutation polynomials over finite fields. First, using the linearised polynomials, we construct the permutation polynomial of the form ${ \mathop{\sum }\nolimits}_{i= 1}^{k} ({L}_{i} (x)+ {\gamma }_{i} ){h}_{i} (B(x))$ over ${\mathbf{F} }_{{q}^{m} } $, where ${L}_{i} (x)$ and $B(x)$ are linearised polynomials. This extends a theorem of Coulter, Henderson and Matthews. Consequently, we generalise a result of Marcos by constructing permutation polynomials of the forms $xh({\lambda }_{j} (x))$ and $xh({\mu }_{j} (x))$, where ${\lambda }_{j} (x)$ is the $j$th elementary symmetric polynomial of $x, {x}^{q} , \ldots , {x}^{{q}^{m- 1} } $ and ${\mu }_{j} (x)= {\mathrm{Tr} }_{{\mathbf{F} }_{{q}^{m} } / {\mathbf{F} }_{q} } ({x}^{j} )$. This answers an open problem raised by Zieve in 2010. Finally, by using the linear translator, we construct the permutation polynomial of the form ${L}_{1} (x)+ {L}_{2} (\gamma )h(f(x))$ over ${\mathbf{F} }_{{q}^{m} } $, which extends a result of Kyureghyan.