Sparse interpolation over finite fields via low-order roots of unity

Abstract: We present a new Monte Carlo algorithm for the interpolation of a straight-line program as a sparse polynomial $f$ over an arbitrary finite field of size $q$. We assume a priori bounds $D$ and $T$ are given on the degree and number of terms of $f$. The approach presented in this paper is a hybrid of the diversified and recursive interpolation algorithms, the two previous fastest known probabilistic methods for this problem. By making effective use of the information contained in the coefficients themselves, this new algorithm improves on the bit complexity of previous methods by a "soft-Oh" factor of $T$, $\log D$, or $\log q$.