Weighted distribution of points on cyclic covers of the projective line over finite fields (Q2422152)

Let \(\mathbb{F}_{q}\) be a fixed finite field and consider \(m\geqslant 2\) an integer. In this paper, the author studies the distribution of the number of \(\mathbb{F}_{q}\)-points on the affine curves \[C_{f}^{(m)}:y^{m}=f(x),\] with \(f(x)\) varying over any of infinitely many collections of 4-th power-free polynomials in \(\mathbb{F}_{q}[x]\) parametrized by integers \(N\geqslant 2\). To describe these collections of polynomials, a new invariant is introduced.