Lectures on a Method in the Theory of Exponential Sums

These notes are based on the lectures given by the author at the Tata Institute in 1985 on certain classes of exponential sums and their applications in analytic number theory. More specifically, the exponential sums under consideration involve either the divisor function d(n) or Fourier coefficients of cusp forms (e.g. Ramanujan's function #3(n)). However, the "transformation method" presented, relying on general principles such as functional equations, summation formulae and the saddle point method, has a wider scope. Its classical analogue is the familiar "process B" in van der Corput's method, that transforms ordinary exponential sums by Poisson's summation formula and the saddle point method. In the present context, the summation formulae required are of the Voronoi type. These are derived in Chapter I. Chapter II deals with exponential integrals and the saddle point method. The main results of these notes, the general transformation formulae for exponential sums, are then established in Chapter III and some applications are given in Chapter IV. First the transformation of Dirichlet polynomials is worked out in detail, and the rest of the chapter is devoted to estimations of exponential sums and Dirichlet series. The material in Chapters III and IV appears here for the first time in print. The notes are addressed to researchers but are also accessible to graduate students with some basic knowledge of analytic number theory.