Sum-product theorems and exponential sum bounds in residue classes for general modulus (Q876098)

Let \(q \in \mathbb N\) and let \(\mathbb Z_q\) denote the ring of integers modulo \(q\). For \(q_1 \mid q\), let \(\pi_{q_1}\) denote the quotient map from \(\mathbb Z_q\) to \(\mathbb Z_{q_1}\). In this paper, the author announces the following result: Theorem 1. Given \(\delta_1, \delta_2 > 0\), there exist \(\varepsilon > 0\) and \(\delta_3 > 0\) such that the following holds: Let \(q\) be a large modulus and \(A \subset \mathbb Z_q\) satisfy: (i) \(| A| < q^{1 - \delta_1}\); (ii) \(| \pi_{q_1}(A)| > q_1^{\delta_2}\) whenever \(q_1 \mid q\) and \(q_1 > q^{\varepsilon}\). Then \(| A + A| + | A \cdot A| > q^{\delta_3}| A| \). A couple of applications of Theorem 1 to the theory of exponential sums over ``almost subgroups'' of \(\mathbb Z_q^*\) are also stated.