A Gauss sum estimate in arbitrary finite fields (Q2499664)

Let \(q=p^m\) be a prime power and let \(\psi(x) = \exp (p^{-1}\text{Tr}\, (\xi x))\), \(\xi \in \mathbb F_q^*\) be a non-trivial additive character of \(\mathbb F_q\). The main theorem proved in this paper is the following: let \(g \in \mathbb F_q^*\;\) and \(t=\text{ord}\,g\). Suppose \(q^\varepsilon < t_1 \leq t\) and \(\max_{1\leq \nu < m \atop \nu | m} \text{gcd}\, (p^\nu -1, t) < q^{-\varepsilon} t\) for some \(\varepsilon >0\). Then \[ \max_{a\in \mathbb F_q^*} \left | \sum_{j \leq t_1} \psi (ag^j)\right | < cq^{-\delta} t_1 \] where \(\delta = \delta (\varepsilon) >0\). As corollary, this yields the upper bound \[ \max_{a\in \mathbb F_q^*} \left | \sum_{x \leq \mathbb F_q} \psi (ax^n)\right | < cq^{1-\delta} \] for any \(n| p^m -1\) satisfying \(\max_{1\leq \nu < m \atop v| m} \text{gcd}\, ( n, \frac{p^m -1}{p^\nu -1}) < p^{-\nu} q^{1-\varepsilon}\). This result supplements the classical bound \(| \sum_{x \in \mathbb F_q} \psi (x^n)| \leq (n-1) q^{1/2}\), which becomes trivial when \(n > \sqrt q\). The present results extend the work in an earlier article [\textit{J. Bourgain, A. Glibichuk} and \textit{S. Konyagin}, J. Lond. Math. Soc. 73, 380--398 (2006; Zbl 1093.11057)] which treats the case \(m =1\). The key idea used is a sum-product estimate in finite fields.