A reduction formula for Waring numbers through generalized Paley graphs (Q2084705)

For a positive integer \(k\), and a finite field \(\mathbb{F}_q\), let \(g(k,q)\) be the smallest positive integer \(m\) such that every sum of \(k\)-th powers in \(\mathbb{F}_q\) is a sum of \(m\) \(k\)-th powers. The authors extends their previous work on the case when the set of these sums equals the full field. They still exploit a relation of the problem with appropriate Cayley graphs. That is the originality of their approach. The main result of the paper is a reduction formula: Theorem. Let \(p\) be a prime number, and let \(a,b,c\) be positive integers. Assume that \(c \mid p^a-1\), \(b c \mid p^{ab}-1\) in such a manner that \(c \) does not divide \(p^k-1\) for \(k < a\), and that \(b c\) does not divide \(p^{\ell}\) for \(\ell < b c\). In the following two cases: (a) \(p=2\), (b) \(p > 2\) and \(b c\) is even one has \[ g\left(\frac{p^{a b}-1}{b c},p^{a b}\right) = b \cdot g\left(\frac{p^{a}-1}{c},p^{a}\right). \] A corollary of one of the many interesting results in the paper is the following: Corollary. Let \(p\) be a prime number, and \(a,b,d\) positive integers such that \(d>1\), \(d \mid p^a-1\), \(p\) does not divide \(b\). Put \(c = \frac{p^{a}-1}{d}\). Assume that \(d \leq p^{a/4}-1\). Then \[ g\left(\frac{p^{a b}-1}{b c},p^{a b}\right) =2 b, \] provided that \(b >1\), \(b\) is not a power of \(2\), \(\gcd(b,d)=1\), and \[ \prod_{q \mid b,q\;\text{prime}} (q-1) \mid a. \] The paper is very detailed and well written.