On the sign change of Kloosterman sums (Q2461379): Difference between revisions

Given three integers \(a, b, n\), with \(n \geq 1\), the Kloosterman sum \(\text{Kl}(a,b;n)\) is defined by \[ \text{Kl}(a,b;n) = \sum_{\substack{ x \bmod n \\ (x,n)=1 }} \exp \left( 2\pi i \frac {ax+b \overline x}n \right), \] where \(\overline x\) denotes an inverse of \(x \bmod n\). This sum is a real number, and is \(\neq 0\) when \(n=p\) is a prime number. The Weil bound on \(\text{Kl} (a, b; p)\), for a prime \(p\) not dividing \(ab\), gives \(| \text{Kl}(a, b; p)| \leq 2 \sqrt p\), and allows one to define the angle \[ \theta_ {p, a}= \arccos \frac {\text{Kl}(1,a;p)}{2 \sqrt p}. \] Combining sieve methods with automorphic form theory and techniques from \(\ell\)-adic cohomology, it is proved that the sign of Kloosterman sums \(\text{Kl}(1,1;n)\) changes infinitely often as \(n\) ranges over the squarefree integers having all their prime factors larger than \(n^{1/23.9}\).