A note on character sums with polynomial arguments. (Q1414021)

The author proves the following: Theorem 1: For any non-trivial additive character \(\chi\) of \({\mathbb F}_{2^n}\) it holds \[ | \sum_{x\in {\mathbb F}_{2^n}}\chi(g(x))| \leq 2^{n-t+1}, \] where \[ g(x)=x^c+\sum_{i=1}^N\beta_ix^{a_i(2^t-1)}, \] with \((c,2^n-1)=1\), \(t| n\), \(N\geq 1\), \(a_i\geq 1\), \(\beta_i\in{\mathbb F}_{2^n}\) for \(i=1,\ldots,N\). This improves the Weil bound \((\deg(g(x))-1)2^{\frac{n}{2}}\) if \(\deg(g(x))>2^{\frac{n}{2}-t+1}+1.\) Particularly when \(n\) is even and \(t=\frac{n}{2}\) the bound obtained is \(2^{\frac{n}{2}+1}\) which is an improvement over the Weil bound for any \(g(x)\) of the above form. Let \(\text{Tr}_1^n\) be the trace from \({\mathbb F}_{2^n}\) to \({\mathbb F}_2\) and let \(\chi_1(x)=e^{\frac{2\pi i\text{Tr}_1^n(x)}{2}}\) be the canonical additive character of \({\mathbb F}_{2^n}\). Theorem 2: Let \(n>1\) be an odd number. There exists a polynomial \(g\) like in Theorem 1 such that \[ | \sum_{x\in {\mathbb F}_{2^n}}\chi_1(g(x))| =2^{n-t+1}. \] Theorem 3: Let \(n>1\) be an even number. There exists a polynomial \(g\) like in Theorem 1, with \(t=\frac{n}{2}\), such that \[ | \sum_{x\in {\mathbb F}_{2^n}}\chi_1(g(x))| \neq 0. \]