Log-free bounds on exponential sums over primes
Abstract
We establish completely log-free bounds for exponential sums over the primes and the M\"{o}bius function. Let , and suppose , with and , and set . For sufficiently large, we show that: \begin{equation*} \Biggl| \sum_{n \leq x} \Lambda(n) e(n\alpha) \Biggr| \leq \frac{q}{\varphi(q)} \frac{\mathscr{F}_{\eta}\bigl( \frac{\log \delta_0 q}{\log x}, \frac{\log^+ \delta_0/q}{\log x} \bigr) \cdot x }{\sqrt{\delta_0 q}} \ \text{ and } \ \Biggl| \sum_{n \leq x} \mu(n) e(n\alpha) \Biggr| \leq \frac{\mathscr{G}_{\eta}\bigl( \frac{\log \delta_0 q}{\log x}, \frac{\log^+ \delta_0/q}{\log x} \bigr) \cdot x}{\sqrt{\delta_0 \varphi(q)}}, \end{equation*} for all , where , and the functions and are explicitly determined, taking small to moderate values. These bounds improve substantially upon the existing results - particularly with respect to the permissible ranges of , in which log-free bounds are known to hold and potentially with respect to asymptotic functions and as well. Moreover, the range is essentially the best possible we can expect. The main innovation is a sieve-weighted version of Vaughan's identity (Lemma 2.1), which is effectively log-free. We employ several ideas and results from the pioneering work of Helfgott, and particularly, they play a central role in ensuring the log-freeness of the type-I contribution. Also, like in his work, these bounds improve as increases.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2505.07803,
title = {Log-free bounds on exponential sums over primes},
author = {Priyamvad Srivastav},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2505.07803},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
32 pages, minor corrections, pdf of ancillary file included