Rational points on complete symmetric hypersurfaces over finite fields

Abstract

For any affine hypersurface defined by a complete symmetric polynomial in $k\geq 3$ variables of degree $m$ over the finite field $\mathbb{F}_{q}$ of $q$ elements, a special case of our theorem says that this hypersurface has at least $6q^{k-3}$ rational points over $\mathbb{F}_{q}$ if $1\leq m \leq q-3$ and $q$ is odd. A key ingredient in our proof is Segre's classical theorem on ovals in finite projective planes.