A generalization of Gaussian sums to vector spaces over finite fields (Q1087957)

Let \(F_ q\) denote the finite field of order \(q=p^ s\) where p is an odd prime, let \({\mathbb{C}}\) denote the complex number field, and let \(\psi\) : \(F_ q\to {\mathbb{C}}\) denote the canonical additive character on \(F_ q\); \(\psi (a)=e^{2\pi itr(a)/p}\). Further, let \(X=(F_ q)^ n\) denote the vector space of n-tuples over \(F_ q\), and let L(X) denote the complex vector space of all functions f from X to \({\mathbb{C}}\). For each \(\xi =(\xi_ 1,\xi_ 2,...\xi_ n)\in X\) the function \(\psi_{\xi}: X\to {\mathbb{C}}\) defined by \(\psi_{\xi}(x)=\psi (\xi \cdot x)\) where \(\xi \cdot x=\xi_ 1x_ 1+...+\xi_ nx_ n\) is a character on the additive group of L(X) and the set of characters \(\{\psi_{\xi}: \xi \in X\}\) is an orthogonal basis for L(X). Let \(\alpha\) denote a nonsingular linear transformation on X and let \(\alpha^{\#}\) denote the linear transformation on L(X) defined by \(\alpha^{\#}f(y)=\sum_{x}f(x)\psi_ y(\alpha x)\). This paper investigates the properties of \(\alpha^{\#}\) and shows how its eigenvalues can be computed.