Slim exceptional sets for sums of fourth and fifth powers (Q4548862)

The authors pursue a recent development in the theory of Waring's Problem in which an established appeal to Bessel's inequality is avoided, being replaced by a more explicit control of an exponential sum over the exceptional set under investigation. Other uses of this idea occur in [\textit{J. Brüdern}, \textit{K. Kawada}, and \textit{T. D. Wooley}, Acta Arith. 100, 267-289 (2001; Zbl 0995.11055)] and other papers in the same series, and in other forthcoming papers of the second-named author. Let \({\mathcal E}_s(X)\) denote the number of natural numbers not exceeding \(X\) that cannot be written as a sum of \(s\) fifth powers of natural numbers. Then earlier methods due to \textit{R. C. Vaughan} and \textit{T. D. Wooley} [Acta Math. 174, 147-240 (1995; Zbl 0849.11075)] would lead to \({\mathcal E}_s(X) \ll X^{1-\sigma-(s-9)/40}\) if \(s \geq 9\), for a certain constant \(\sigma\) slightly larger than \(0.0095\). The authors show that \({\mathcal E}_{15}(X) \ll X^{62/105}\) and \({\mathcal E}_{16}(X) \ll X^{17/30}\). For fourth powers, their results take a little longer to state because of the complications induced by necessary congruence conditions modulo 16. In this case the authors' methods use the identity, noted by them in [J. Reine Angew. Math. 512, 173-223 (1999; Zbl 1005.11046)], \[ {(x+y)}^4 +{(x-y)}^4 +{(2y)}^4 =2\bigl(x^2+3y^2\bigr)^2. \]