Let $f(x)\in \mathbb {Z}[x]$ be a nonconstant polynomial. Let $n\ge 1, k\ge 2$ and c be integers. An integer a is called an f-exunit in the ring $\mathbb {Z}_n$ of residue classes modulo n if $\gcd (f(a),n)=1$ . We use the principle of cross-classification to derive an explicit formula for the number ${\mathcal N}_{k,f,c}(n)$ of solutions $(x_1,\ldots ,x_k)$ of the congruence $x_1+\cdots +x_k\equiv c\pmod n$ with all $x_i$ being f-exunits in the ring $\mathbb {Z}_n$ . This extends a recent result of Anand et al. [‘On a question of f-exunits in $\mathbb {Z}/{n\mathbb {Z}}$ ’, Arch. Math. (Basel)116 (2021), 403–409]. We derive a more explicit formula for ${\mathcal N}_{k,f,c}(n)$ when $f(x)$ is linear or quadratic.

Complex linear differential equations with entire coefficients are studied in the situation where one of the coefficients is an exponential polynomial and dominates the growth of all the other coefficients. If such an equation has an exponential polynomial solution $f$, then the order of $f$ and of the dominant coefficient are equal, and the two functions possess a certain duality property. The results presented in this paper improve earlier results by some of the present authors, and the paper adjoins with two open problems.

Let $\unicode[STIX]{x1D701}(s)$ be the Riemann zeta function. In 1929, Hardy and Littlewood proved the approximate functional equation for $\unicode[STIX]{x1D701}^{2}(s)$ with error term $O(x^{1/2-\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}}((x+y)/|t|)^{1/4}\log |t|)$, where $-1/2<\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}<3/2,x,y\geqslant 1,xy=(|t|/2\unicode[STIX]{x1D70B})^{2}$. Later, in 1938, Titchmarsh improved the error term by removing the factor $((x+y)/|t|)^{1/4}$. In 1999, Hall showed the approximate functional equations for $\unicode[STIX]{x1D701}^{\prime }(s)^{2},\unicode[STIX]{x1D701}(s)\unicode[STIX]{x1D701}^{\prime \prime }(s)$, and $\unicode[STIX]{x1D701}^{\prime }(s)\unicode[STIX]{x1D701}^{\prime \prime }(s)$ (in the range $0<\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}<1$) whose error terms contain the factor $((x+y)/|t|)^{1/4}$. In this paper we remove this factor from these three error terms by using the method of Titchmarsh.

We prove a new bound on collinear triples in subgroups of prime finite fields and use it to give some new bounds on exponential sums with trinomials.

In this paper, we present a decomposition of the elements of a finite field and illustrate the efficiency of this decomposition in evaluating some specific exponential sums over finite fields. The results can be employed in determining the Walsh spectrum of some Boolean functions.

A new version of Erdös-Turán's inequality is described. The purpose of the present paper is to show that the inequality provides better upper bounds for the discrepancies of some sequences than usual Erdös-Turán's inequality.