Bounds for the binary quartic Weyl sum

Abstract

We prove that $$ \sum_{1\le x,y\le N} e(αF(x,y)) \ll_{F,α,ε}N^{5/3+ε} $$ for every $ε>0$, real quadratic irrational $α$, and integral binary quartic form $F$ that is not the fourth power of a linear form over $\mathbb{C}$. The proof uses the two-dimensional $q$-analogue of van der Corput's method, following Heath-Brown's work in the one-variable case. The heart of our argument rests on new bounds for complete binary cubic Weyl sums with linear terms, which retain the dependence on the cubic discriminant and the linear coefficients.