Multiplicative Functions and a Taxonomy of Dirichlet Characters

We provide estimates for sums of the form \[\left|\sum_{a\in A}\sum_{b\in B}\sum_{c\in C}\chi(a+b+c)\right|\] and \[\left|\sum_{a\in A}\sum_{b\in B}\sum_{c\in C}\sum_{d\in D}\chi(a+b+cd)\right|\] when $A,B,C,D\subset \mathbb F_p$, the field with $p$ elements and $\chi$ is a non-trivial multiplicative character modulo $p$.

A classical theorem of Paley asserts the existence of an infinite family of quadratic characters whose character sums become exceptionally large. In this paper, we establish an analogous result for characters of any fixed even order. Previously our bounds were only known under the assumption of the Generalized Riemann Hypothesis.

In the present note, we prove new lower bounds on large values of character sums $\Delta(x,q):=\max_{\chi \neq \chi_0} \vert \sum_{n\leq x} \chi(n)\vert$ in certain ranges of $x$. Employing an implementation of the resonance method developed in a work involving the author in order to exhibit large values of $L$- functions, we improve some results of Hough in the range $\log x = o(\sqrt{\log q})$. Our results are expressed using the counting function of $y$- friable integers l...

In this paper, we prove a lower bound for $\underset{\chi \neq \chi_0}{\max}\bigg|\sum_{n\leq x} \chi(n)\bigg|$, when $x= \frac{q}{(\log q)^B}$. This improves on a result of Granville and Soundararajan for large character sums when the range of summation is wide. When $B$ goes to zero, our lower bound recovers the expected maximal value of character sums for most characters.

We obtain explicit bounds on the moments of character sums, refining estimates of Montgomery and Vaughan. As an application we obtain results on the distribution of the maximal magnitude of character sums normalized by the square root of the modulus, finding almost double exponential decay in the tail of this distribution.

In this article we study analytic properties of the multiple Dirichlet series associated to additive and Dirichlet characters. For the multiple Dirichlet series associated to additive characters, the meromorphic continuation is established via obtaining translation formulas satisfied by these multiple Dirichlet series. While it seems difficult to obtain such a translation formula for the multiple Dirichlet series associated to Dirichlet characters, we rely on their intrinsic ...

This article is an expanded version of the talk given by the first author at the conference "Exponential sums over finite fields and applications" (ETH, Z\"urich, November, 2010). We state some conjectures on archimedian and $p$-adic estimates for multiplicative character sums over smooth projective varieties. We also review some of the results of J. Dollarhide, which formed the basis for these conjectures. Applying his results, we prove one of the conjectures when the smooth...

We establish an analogue of a conjecture of Balasubramanian, Conrey, and Heath-Brown for the family of all Dirichlet characters with conductor up to $Q$. This forms another application of our work in developing an asymptotic large sieve.

In this paper, we present the character analogue of the Boole summation formula. Using this formula, an integral representation is derived for the alternating Dirichlet $L-$function and its derivative is evaluated at $s=0$. Some applications of the character analogue of the Boole summation formula and the integral representation are given about the alternating Dirichlet $L-$function. Moreover, the reciprocity formulas for two new arithmetic sums, arising from utilizing the su...

We prove conjecturally sharp upper bounds for the Dirichlet character moments $\frac{1}{r-1} \sum_{\chi \; \text{mod} \; r} |\sum_{n \leq x} \chi(n)|^{2q}$, where $r$ is a large prime, $1 \leq x \leq r$, and $0 \leq q \leq 1$ is real. In particular, if both $x$ and $r/x$ tend to infinity with $r$ then $\frac{1}{r-1} \sum_{\chi \; \text{mod} \; r} |\sum_{n \leq x} \chi(n)| = o(\sqrt{x})$, and so the sums $\sum_{n \leq x} \chi(n)$ typically exhibit "better than squareroot cance...