On the difference between permutation polynomials

The well-known Chowla and Zassenhaus conjecture, proved by Cohen in 1990, states that if p>(d2−3d+4)2, then there is no complete mapping polynomial f in Fp[x] of degree d≥2. For arbitrary finite fields Fq, a similar non-existence result was obtained recently by Işık, Topuzoğlu and Winterhof in terms of the Carlitz rank of f.Cohen, Mullen and Shiue generalized the Chowla-Zassenhaus-Cohen Theorem significantly in 1995, by considering differences of permutation polynomials. More precisely, they showed that if f and f+g are both permutation polynomials of degree d≥2 over Fp, with p>(d2−3d+4)2, then the degree k of g satisfies k≥3d/5, unless g is constant. In this article, assuming f and f+g are permutation polynomials in Fq[x], we give lower bounds for the Carlitz rank of f in terms of q and k. Our results generalize the above mentioned result of Işık et al. We also show for a special class of permutation polynomials f of Carlitz rank n≥1 that if f+xk is a permutation over Fq, with gcd⁡(k+1,q−1)=1, then k≥(q−n)/(n+3).