L-functions of symmetric powers of cubic exponential sums

For each positive integer k, we investigate the L-function attached to the k-th symmetric power of the F-crystal associated to the family of cubic exponential sums of x^3 + \lambda x. We explore its rationality, field of definition, degree, trivial factors, functional equation, and Newton polygon. The paper is essentially self-contained, due to the remarkable and attractive nature of Dwork's p-adic theory. A novel feature of this paper is an extension of Dwork's effective decomposition theory when k < p. This allows for explicit computations in the associated p-adic cohomology. In particular, the action of Frobenius on the (primitive) cohomology spaces may be explicitly studied.