Character sums of rational functions (Q1804892)

Let \(\chi\) be a primitive Dirichlet character to the prime power modulus \(p^\alpha\). Let \(R(x)\) be a rational function and \(A\) denote the set of the integers from 0 to \(p - 1\) which are neither zeros nor poles of \(R \pmod {p^\alpha}\). Denote by \(|\cdot |_p\) the normalized exponential valuation of the \(p\)-adic field \(\mathbb{Q}_p\). Write \[ A(i, \theta) = \left\{ x \in A : \left |{R^{(j)} (x) \over j!} \right |_p \geq {\alpha \over j + 1} \quad (0 < j < i), \quad \left |{R^{(i)} (x) \over i!} \right |_p = \theta \right\}. \] Then it follows from the argument in the reviewer's paper [Proc. Lond. Math. Soc., III. Ser. 52, 215-235 (1986; Zbl 0586.10020)] that if \(\theta < {\alpha \over 2}\) then \(\sum_{x \in A (1, \theta)} \chi (R(x)) < p^{\alpha/2}\), if \(\theta \ll {\alpha \over 3}\) then \(\sum_{x \in A(2, \theta)} \chi (R(x)) < p^{(\alpha + \theta)/2}\). In the present paper the author obtains estimates for \(A (i, \theta)\) in further cases. Let \(i > 2\) and \(0 < \theta < {\alpha \over i + 1}\) and suppose that \(x \in A (i, \theta) \Rightarrow x + p^v \in A(i, \theta)\), where \(v = \lceil {\alpha - \theta \over i} \rceil\). Then, writing \(v_0 = {\alpha - v - \theta \over i - 1}\) and \(v_1 = \lceil {\alpha - \theta - 1 \over i} \rceil\), it is shown that \[ \sum_{x \in A (i, \theta)} \chi \bigr( R(x) \bigr) \ll \alpha p^{\alpha - v_0} + p^{\alpha - v_1}. \] A number of corollaries are given including that if \(p \nmid (a,b)\) then \[ \sum_{x \pmod {p^\alpha}} \chi (ax + bx^{-1}) \ll \alpha p^{(2\alpha +1)/3}. \]