Exponential sums over points of elliptic curves (Q401994)

Let \(q\) be a prime power and \(\mathcal E\) be the elliptic curve \(y^2=x^3+Ax+B\) over the finite field \({\mathbb F}_q\) of \(q\) elements and characteristic \(p\geq 5\). Write the point \(P\neq {\mathcal O}\) on \(\mathcal E\) as \(P=(x(P),y(P))\). Fix a nonprincipal additive character \(\psi\) of \({\mathbb F}_q\). The authors give a simple new estimate for the bilinear sum \[ V_{\rho,\theta}(\psi, \mathcal{P, Q})=\sum_{P\in{\mathcal P}}\sum_{Q\in{\mathcal Q}} \rho(P)\theta(Q)\psi(x(P+Q)) \] where \({\mathcal{P,Q}}\subset{\mathcal E}({\mathbb F}_q)\): if \(\sum_{P\in{\mathcal P}} \rho(P)|^2\leq R\) and \(\sum_{Q\in{\mathcal Q}}|\theta(Q)|^2\leq T\), then, uniformly in \(\psi\), \(|V_{\rho,\theta}(\psi,\mathcal{P,Q})|\ll\sqrt{qRT}\). The estimate is obtained by collecting the points \(P\) and \(Q\) with a given sum \(S=P+Q\), identifying this condition using the character sum over the group characters of \({\mathcal E}({\mathbb F}_q)\) and using the Cauchy inequality. The estimate is applied to a range of combinatorial problems on elliptic curves. For example, for the sum-product problem, if \({\mathcal U}=\{x(P)+x(Q): P\in{\mathcal P}, Q\in{\mathcal Q}\}\) and \({\mathcal V}=\{x(P+Q): P\in{\mathcal P}, Q\in{\mathcal Q}\}\), then \(\#{\mathcal U}\#{\mathcal V}\gg\min\{q\#{\mathcal P}, (\#{\mathcal P}\#{\mathcal Q})^2q^{-1}\}\), improving a result of the second author. Other applications improve results on the distribution of subset sums and pseudorandom numbers for some ranges of the parameters. A second group of applications involves estimates for sums of the type \(S_n(\psi; a,b)=\sum_{P\in{\mathcal E}({\mathbb F}_q)} \psi(ax(P)+bx(nP))\). It is shown that, for \(a\in{\mathbb F}_q^*\) and \(b\in{\mathbb F}_q\), \(S_n(\psi; a,b)\ll qd^{-1/2}\) where \(d=\gcd(n,\#{\mathcal E}({\mathbb F}_q))\), also improving a result of the second author.