Counting sheaves using spherical codes (Q395056)

Let \(p\) be a prime number and let \(k\) be a finite field of characteristic \(p\). Let \(\ell\) be a prime number different then \(p\) and consider a smooth geometrically connected algebraic curve \(X\) of genus \(g\geq 0\) defined over \(k\). Moreover, let \(Y\) be a smooth compactification of \(X\). The authors consider \textit{middle-extension sheaves} on \(X/k\), i.e. constructible \(\bar{\mathbb{Q}}_{\ell}\)-sheaves \(\mathcal{F}\) on \(X/k\) such that, for any open set \(U\) on which \(\mathcal{F}\) is lisse and any open immersion \(j:\;U\hookrightarrow X\), the following holds: \(\mathcal{F}\simeq j_{\ast}j^{\ast} \mathcal{F}\). It is known that the set of middle-extension sheaves on \(X/k\) is infinite and thus in order to have well defined counting problem the authors measure the complexity of the sheaf by its analytic conductor: \[ {\mathbf c}(\mathcal{F})=g(Y)+\text{rank}(\mathcal{F})+\sum_{x\in \text{Sing}(\mathcal{F})}\text{max}(1,\text{Swan}_{x}(\mathcal{F})), \] where \(g(Y)\) is the genus of \(Y\times\bar{k}\), \(\text{rank}(\mathcal{F})\) is the rank of the middle-extension sheaf \(\mathcal{F}\) and \(\text{Sing}(\mathcal{F})\) is the finite set of singularities contained in \(Y(\bar{k})\). Let \(Me_{X}(k)\) be the category of geometrically irreducible middle-extension sheaves \(\mathcal{F}\) on \(X/k\) which are pointwise pure of weight 0. Moreover, for \(c\geq 1\), we denote by \(Me_{X}(k, c)\) the subcategory of those sheaves \(\mathcal{F}\in Me_{X}(k)\) which satisfy the inequality \({\mathbf c}(\mathcal{F})\leq c\). Finally, by \({\mathbf ME}_{X}(k)\) (resp. \({\mathbf ME}_{X}(k,c))\) we denote the set of geometric isomorphism classes of sheaves in \(Me_{X}(k)\) (res. \(Me_{X}(k,c)\)). The main result of the paper says that there exist absolute constants \(B>0, C\geq 1\) such that: \[ |{\mathbf ME}_{X}(k,c)|\leq C|k|^{Bc^{6}}, \] for all finite fields with \(|k|\geq 1265c^{9}\). In particular, for fixed \(c\), we have \[ |{\mathbf ME}_{{\mathbf A}^{1}}(k,c)|=\mathcal{O}(|k|^{Bc^{6}}). \] As an application of this result (in the case \(X={\mathbf A}^{1}\)) the authors present the result concerning the problem of writing a function defined on a finite field as a short linear combination of trace functions on sheaves.