Bounds for the quartic Weyl sum (Q6190807)

Let \(e(x)=\exp(2\pi i x)\). In the paper under review, the author obtains a sharp estimate for the Weyl sum \[ S_k(\alpha,N)=\sum_{n\le N} e(\alpha n^k), \] in the particular case \(k=4\). Although, from the classical ``Weyl bound'' we get \(S_4(\alpha, N)\ll_{\varepsilon,\alpha}N^{7/8+\varepsilon}\), and as far as we know the general exponent \(7/8\) has never been improved on, the author proves that letting \(\alpha\in\mathbb{R}-\mathbb{Q}\) to be a quadratic irrational, then \[ S_4(\alpha,N)\ll_{\varepsilon,\alpha}N^{5/6+\varepsilon} \] for any \(\varepsilon>0\). For, the author applies the \(q\)-analogue of van der Corput's method, which requires a good approximation \(a/q\) to \(\alpha\), in which \(q\) factorizes in a suitable way. For the quartic sum he proves that if \(a\) and \(q\) are coprime integers and that \(q\) factors as \(q=q_1q_2\), then \[ S_4(\alpha,N)\ll_{\varepsilon} \left(1+N^4\left|\alpha-\frac{a}{q}\right|\right) (N^{1/2}q_1^{1/2}+N^{1/2}q_2^{1/4}+Nq_2^{-1/6})q^{\varepsilon}, \] for any \(N\ge 2q_1\) and any \(\varepsilon>0\).