Sums of multiplicative characters with additive convolutions (Q2362410)

Let \(p\) be a prime number and \(\chi\) a nontrivial multiplicative character modulo \(p\) and consider the exponential sum \[ S(\chi: A,B) = \sum_{a\in A, b\in B} \chi(a+b), \] where \(A\) and \(B\) are subsets of \(\mathbb{F}_p\). The Paley graph conjecture gives a bound for \(S(\chi:A,B)\): if \(\delta>0\) and \(A, B \subset\mathbb{F}_p\) with \(|A|, |B| > p^\delta\), then there exists \(\tau= \tau(\delta)\) such that \(|S(\chi:A,B)|< p^{-\tau}|A|\cdot|B|\), for any sufficiently large prime number \(p\) and all nontrivial characters \(\chi\). The main result of the paper gives a non-trivial bound when \(|A|, |B|>p^{12/31+\delta}\), \(|A+A|<K|A|\) and \(|B+B|<L|B|\) (where \(K,L,\delta>0\)), namely \[ |S(\chi; A,B)|\ll \sqrt{\frac{L\log(2K)}{\delta\log p}}|A|\cdot |B| \] provided \(p>p(\delta, K,L)\). This refines a result of \textit{M.-C. Chang} [Duke Math. J. 145, No. 3, 409--442 (2008; Zbl 1241.11137)], where the assumptions were \(|A|, |B|>p^{4/9+\delta}\) and \(|B+B|<K|B|\). A variant of the main result is obtained for the sum \(|\sum_{a\in A, b\in B, c\in C} \chi(a+b+c)|\) and sets \(A, B, C\subset \mathbb{F}_p\) such that \(|A|, |B|, |C|> p^{12/31+\delta}\), \(|A+A|<K|A|\) and \(|B+C|<L|B|\). The ingredients required in the proof include the Croot and Sisask lemma [\textit{E. Croot} and \textit{O. Sisask}, Geom. Funct. Anal. 20, No. 6, 1367--1396 (2010; Zbl 1234.11013)]: Suppose \(\epsilon \in (0, 1), K \geq 1\) and \(q \geq 2\) are real numbers and \(A\) and \(S\) are subsets of an abelian group \(G\) such that \(|A + S| \leq K|A|\). Let \(f \in L_q(G)\) be an arbitrary function. Then there is an \(s \in S\) and a set \(T \subset S - s\) with \(|T| \geq |S|(2K)^{-O(\epsilon^{-2}q)}\), such that \(||(f*A)(x+t)-(f*A)(x)||_{L_q(G)} \leq \epsilon |A|\cdot||f||_{L_q(G)}\) for all \(t \in T\). This lemma has many applications in additive combinatorics. The proof also requires the Plünnecke-Ruzsa triangle inequality (for any nonempty sets \(A, B\) and \(C\) one has \(|A-C|\leq |A-B|\cdot|B-C|/|B|\) and \(|A+C|\leq |A+B|\cdot|C+B|/|B|\)) and a result of Freiman on sets with small doubling (for any set \(A \subset \mathbb{F}_p\) such that \(|A + A| \leq K|A|\), there is a proper generalised arithmetic progression \(P\) of dimension \(d\) containing \(A\) such that \(d \leq C(K)\) and \(|P| \leq e^{C(K)}|A|\) with a constant \(C(K) > 0\) which depends only on \(K\) but not on the set \(A\)).