Burgess bounds for short character sums evaluated at forms

Abstract

In this work we establish a Burgess bound for short multiplicative character sums in arbitrary dimensions, in which the character is evaluated at a homogeneous form that belongs to a very general class of "admissible" forms. This $n$-dimensional Burgess bound is nontrivial for sums over boxes of sidelength at least $q^{\beta}$, with $\beta > 1/2 - 1/(2(n+1))$. This is the first Burgess bound that applies in all dimensions to generic forms of arbitrary degree. Our approach capitalizes on a recent stratification result for complete multiplicative character sums evaluated at rational functions, due to the second author.