Estimates for mixed character sums (Q1001486)

Let \(k\) be a finite fields of characteristic \(p\) and \[ \psi: (k,+) \rightarrow { \mathbb Z}[ \zeta_{p}]^{ \times} \subset { \mathbb C}^{ \times} \] a nontrivial additive character of \(k\). A polynomial \(f=f(x_{1}, \dots ,x_{n})\) in \(n \geq 1\) variables over \(k\) of degree \( \geq 1\) is said to be a ``Deligne polynomial'' if its degree \(d \geq 1\) is prime to \(p\) and the equation \(f_{d}=0\), where \(f_{d}\) is the leading form of \(f\), defines (if \(n \geq 2\)) a smooth hypersurface in the projective space \({ \mathbb P}^{n-1}\). For a Deligne polynomial \(f\) as above, one has Deligne's fundamental estimate \[ \left| \sum_{(x_{1}, \dots ,x_{n}) \in k^{n}} \psi(f(x_{1}, \dots ,x_{n})) \right| \leq (d-1)^{n}{ \#}(k)^{n/2}. \] In this paper the author is interested in a good (i.e. square root cancellation) estimate for the sum \[ \sum_{(x_{1}, \dots ,x_{n}) \in k^{n}} \psi(f(x_{1}, \dots ,x_{n})) \prod_{i=1}^{n} \vartheta(x_{i}), \] with some given \({ \mathbb C}\)-valued functions \(x \mapsto \vartheta_{i}(x)\), for \(1 \leq i \leq n\). The Deligne polynomial \(f=f(x_{1}, \dots ,x_{n})\) is said to be Dwork-regular if, for every proper subset \(S \subset \{1,2, \dots ,n \}\), the polynomial obtained by specializing \(x_{i} \mapsto 0\) for \(i \in S\) is a Deligne polynomial of the same degree \(d\) in the remaining variables \(x_{j}\), \(j \not \in S\). Next, let \( \chi_{i}: k^{ \times} \rightarrow { \mathbb C}^{ \times}\) be a given multiplicative character (with \( \chi_{i}(0)=0\)), and \(p_{i}(x) \in k[x]\) a non-zero one-variable polynomial. It is proposed that for each \(i\) the following non-degeneracy condition holds: for every zero \( \alpha\) of the polynomial \(p_{i}\), the multiplicative character \( { \chi_{i}}^{\text{ord}_{ \alpha}(p_{i})}\), where \(\text{ord}_{ \alpha}(p_{i})\) is the order of multiplicity of \( \alpha\) as a zero of \(p_{i}\), is non-trivial. Then the author proves the following result concerning mixed character sums. \textbf{Theorem 1}. Suppose that the Deligne polynomial \(f=f(x_{1}, \dots ,x_{n})\) of prime-to-\(p\) degree \(d\) is Dwork-regular, and that the data \(( \chi_{i},p_{i})\), \(1 \leq i \leq n\), satisfies the above non-degeneracy conditions. If \(e_{i}\), for each \(i\), denotes the number of distinct zeros of \(p_{i}\) in \( \bar{k}\) then the following inequality holds \[ \left | \sum_{(x_{1}, \dots ,x_{n}) \in k^{n}} \psi(f(x_{1}, \dots ,x_{n})) \prod_{i=1}^{n} \chi_{i}(p_{i}(x_{i})) \right| \leq \left( \prod_{i=1}^{n}(d-1+e_{i}) \right) \# (k)^{n/2} . \] Moreover, if \(r_{i}( \in k(x))\), \(1 \leq i \leq n\), are rational functions and \(p_{i}(x) \in k[x]\), \(1 \leq i \leq n\), are polynomials satisfying some appropriate non-degeneracy conditions, the author proves similar results for mixed character sums of the form \[ \sum_{(x_{1}, \dots x_{n}) \in k^{n}} \psi(f(x_{1}, \dots, x_{n})) \prod_{i=1}^{n} \psi_{i}(r_{i}(x_{i})) \] and \[ \sum_{(x_{1}, \dots ,x_{n}) \in k^{n}} \psi(f(x_{1}, \dots ,x_{n})) \prod_{i=1}^{n}( \psi(r_{i}(x_{i})) \chi_{i}(p_{i}(x_{i}))). \] In the course of proofs of these results the author clarifies a cohomology sense of the above mentioned non-degeneracy conditions.