The generating fields of twisted Kloosterman sums (Q6969876)

Let \(p\) be a prime number, \(q=p^d\) a power of \(p\), and \(\mathbb{F}_q\) the field with \(q\) elements. Denote by \(\mu_n \subseteq \overline{\mathbb{Q}}^{\times}\)the group of \(n\)th roots of unity. Let \(\psi: \mathbb{F}_p \rightarrow \mu_p\) be a fixed non-trivial additive character. For \(\boldsymbol{\chi}=\left\{\chi_1, \ldots, \chi_n\right\}\) an unordered \(n\)-tuple of multiplicative characters \(\chi_i: \mathbb{F}_q^{\times} \rightarrow \mu_{q-1}\) and \(a \in \mathbb{F}_q^{\times}\), define the \textit{twisted Kloosterman sum} as\N\begin{align*}\N\mathrm{Kl}_n(\psi, \boldsymbol{\chi}, q, a)=\sum_{\substack{x_1 \cdots x_n=a \\\Nx_i \in \mathbb{F}_q^{\times}}} \chi_1\left(x_1\right) \cdots \chi_n\left(x_n\right) \psi\left(\operatorname{Tr}_{\mathbb{F}_q / \mathbb{F}_p}\left(x_1+\cdots+x_n\right)\right).\N\end{align*}\NThe main purpose of this paper is to determine the generating fields of \(\mathrm{Kl}_n(\psi, \boldsymbol{\chi}, q, a)\). In order to do this, the author studies when two twisted Kloosterman sums differ by a factor of \(\lambda\) for sufficiently large \(p\) using the Kloosterman sheaves constructed by Fisher, and proves the non-vanishing of twisted Kloosterman sums through \(p\)-adic analysis.