Bounds for theta sums in higher rank. I

Abstract

Theta sums are finite exponential sums with a quadratic form in the oscillatory phase. This paper establishes new upper bounds for theta sums in the case of smooth and box truncations. This generalises a classic 1977 result of Fiedler, Jurkat and Körner for one-variable theta sums and, in the multi-variable case, improves previous estimates obtained by Cosentino and Flaminio in 2015. Key steps in our approach are the automorphic representation of theta functions and their growth in the cusps of the underlying homogeneous space.