The method of exponential sums is a general method enabling the solution
of a wide range of problems in the theory of numbers and its
applications. This volume presents an exposition of the fundamentals of
the theory with the help of examples which show how exponential sums
arise and how they are applied in problems of number theory and its
applications.
The material is divided into three chapters which embrace the classical
results of Gauss, and the methods of Weyl, Mordell and Vinogradov; the
traditional applications of exponential sums to the distribution of
fractional parts, the estimation of the Riemann zeta function; and the
theory of congruences and Diophantine equations. Some new applications
of exponential sums are also included.
It is assumed that the reader has a knowledge of the fundamentals of
mathematical analysis and of elementary number theory.