The values of additive forms at prime arguments (Q2477879)

Let \(k, s \in \mathbb N\) and let \(\lambda_1, \dots, \lambda_s\) be nonzero real numbers, not all negative and such that not all pairwise ratios \(\lambda_i/\lambda_j\) are rational. A variant of the classical Waring-Goldbach problem is concerned with the distribution of values of the diagonal form \(F(\mathbf{p}) = \lambda_1p_1^k + \dots + \lambda_sp_s^k\) at vectors \(\mathbf{p} = (p_1, \dots, p_s)\) with prime components. We call a set \(\mathcal V\) of positive reals a well-spaced set if there exists a constant \(c > 0\) such that \(| v - v'| > c\) whenever \(v, v' \in \mathcal V\) and \(v \neq v'\). Let \(\mathcal V\) be a well-spaced set such that \(\#(\mathcal V \cap [1, X]) \gg X^{1 - \varepsilon}\) for any fixed \(\varepsilon > 0\), and let \(E_k(\mathcal, X, \delta)\) denote the number of elements \(v\) of \(\mathcal V\) for which the inequality \(| F(\mathbf{p}) - v| < v^{-\delta}\) has no solution. In this paper, the authors obtain estimates for \(E_k(\mathcal V, X, \delta)\) when \(s\) is sufficiently large in terms of \(k\) and one has some control over the rational approximations to the coefficients \(\lambda_i\). For example, suppose that one of the ratios \(\lambda_i/\lambda_j\) is an algebraic irrational, and define \(H^*(k)\) by \[ \begin{alignedat}{4} H^*(3) &= 5, &\quad H^*(4)&= 8, &\quad H^*(5)&= 13, &\quad H^*(6)&= 19,\\ H^*(7) &= 28, &\quad H^*(8)&= 38, &\quad H^*(9)&= 49, &\quad H^*(10)&= 62. \end{alignedat} \] In Theorem 1, the authors prove that when \(s = H^*(k)\) and \(\delta > 0\) and \(\varepsilon > 0\) are fixed, one has \[ E_k(\mathcal V, X, \delta) \ll X^{1 - 2\sigma(k)/k + 2\delta + \varepsilon}, \] where \(\sigma(3)= 1/14\) and \(\sigma(k)= 2^{1 - k}/3\) for \(k \geq 4\). The proofs are based on the Davenport-Heilbronn version of the circle method and make use of recent estimates for Weyl sums over primes.