No label defined (Q4353514)

Many problems in analytic number theory involve estimating the number of lattice points in a region, and these estimates can be reduced to considering sums of the form \(\sum_{M \leq m < M_2} \rho(f(m))\), where \(\rho\) is the rounding error function \(\rho(t)=t-[t]-1/2\) and \(M_2\leq 2M\). In the standard case, there are constants \(C_r\) such that \[ T/C_r M^r \leq | f^{(r-1)}(x)| \leq C_r T/M^r;\tag{\(*\)} \] the parameter \(T\) has the dimensions of area. In this paper, the author considers the ``shear case'', where \(f(x)=g(x) + \alpha x\), where \(g\) satisfies the conditions \((*)\), but \(f\) does not satisfy \((*)\) for \(r=2\). The estimates are given in four theorems, all of which are too elaborate to restate here. Theorem 1 is a technical result on exponential sums following a method invented by \textit{H. Iwaniec} and \textit{C. Mozzochi} [J. Number Theory 29, 60-93 (1988; Zbl 0644.10031)]. Theorem 2 is the application to rounding error sums. Theorems 3 and 4 are corresponding results for the ``short sum'' case, where \(M_2-M \ll T/M\). The estimates involve continued fraction expansions of \(\beta\), which is defined to be the minimum of \(f'(x)\) on the interval \(M \leq x < M_2\). For the entire collection see [Zbl 0868.00042].