Exponential function analogue of Kloosterman sums (Q1767357)

Let \(p\) be a prime, and let \(t\) be a divisor of \(p-1\). Further let \(\mathbb{Z}^*_t\) be the subset of \(\{0,\dots, t-1\}\) consisting of \(\varphi(t)\) invertible elements, where \(\varphi(t)\) is the Euler function. For any integers \(a\) and \(b\) with \(0\leq a\), \(b\leq p-1\), let \(K_g(a,b)= \sum_{x\in\mathbb{Z}^*_t} e(ag^x+ bg^{x^{-1}})\), where \(g\) is of multiplicative order \(t\) modulo \(p\), \(e(z)= \exp(2\pi z\sqrt{-1}/p)\). In this paper the author obtains a nontrivial upper bound on \(K_g(a,b)\) on average over all elements \(g\) of multiplicative order \(t\), provided that \(t\geq p^{3/4+\delta}\) with an arbitrary fixed positive number \(\delta\).