The Waring's problem over finite fields through generalized Paley graphs (Q2659237)

Given 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 paper considers the case when the set of these sums equal the full field, and computes \(g(k,q)\) with a novel approach, namely computing instead the size of certain appropriate Cayley graph. One of the many interesting results is the following: Theorem. Let \(p\) be an odd prime congruent to \(1\) modulo a given even number \(n\). Then \[ g \left(\frac{p-1}{n},p\right) \geq \frac{1}{2} \left(p \left({\frac{n}{2}}\right)! \right)^{\frac{2}{n}}-\frac{n+2}{4}. \] The paper is very detailed and well written.