A note on Weyl's inequality for eighth powers (Q2453643)

For any large \(P\) and natural number \(s\), let \[ I_{2s} (P) = \int_0^1\int_0^1 \left|\sum_{1 \leq x \leq P} e^{2\pi i (\beta x^2 + \gamma\, x^4)} \right|^{2s} d\beta\, d\gamma\,. \] This double integral counts the number of simultaneous solutions of the two Diophantine equations \[ \begin{aligned} x_1^4 + \cdots x_s^4 & = y_1^4 +\cdots + y_s^4 \\ x_1^2 + \cdots + x_s^2 & = y_1^2 +\cdots + y_s^2 .\end{aligned} \] The main result proved in this paper is the bound \(I_{10} (P) \ll P^{6 + \varepsilon}\) for any \(\varepsilon >0\). The argument for this is akin to a method of \textit{L.-K. Hua} [Q. J. Math., Oxf. Ser. 20, 48--61 (1949; Zbl 0039.27403)] and proceeds by symmetric Weyl differencing. As an application, the author proves the following bound for exponential sum of degree \(8\) \[ \sum_{1 \leq x \leq P} e^{2 \pi i \alpha x^8} \ll P^{79/80+\varepsilon} ( P^4q^{-1} + 1 + qP^{-4})^{1/160}, \] where \(|\alpha - a/q| \leq q^{-2}, (a, q) =1\) and \(q \geq 1\). This estimate improves by a small amount the bound obtained by \textit{O. Robert} and \textit{P. Sargos} [Publ. Inst. Math., Nouv. Sér. 67(81), 14--30 (2000; Zbl 1006.11046)] in a restricted range of \(q\). However, no new results on Diophantine problems of this kind have been found.