Pairs of additive congruences: Quintic congruences (Q1079590)

In [Proc. Symp. Pure Math. 12, 74-98 (1969; Zbl 0226.10026)] \textit{H. Davenport} and \textit{D. J. Lewis} considered two additive equations \[ a_ 1x^ k_ 1+...+a_ nx^ k_ n=0,\quad b_ 1x^ k_ 1+...+b_ nx^ k_ n=0 \] where the coefficients \(a_ j\), \(b_ j\) are integers and k is a positive odd number. They proved that if \(n\geq 2k^ 2+1\) then these equations have a non-trivial solution in every p- adic field. In this paper the author is interested in the case \(k=5\). He proves that if \(n\geq 31\) these equations have a non-trivial solution in every p-adic field except possibly when \(p=5\) or \(p=191\) or \(p\equiv 1 (mod 10)\) and \(p\leq 131\). Similar results are also obtained in this paper when \(n\geq 46\), 41 and 36, respectively. Part of the proof depends essentially on numerical calculations concerning certain exponential sums by computers.