If have circular spacing at least , then
Multiply the exponential sum by , apply the Sobolev–Gallagher inequality on disjoint arcs of length , and sum. The finite-interval Parseval identities and Cauchy-Schwarz inequality bound the derivative contribution by .
The points are -spaced if their circular spacing satisfies for , where is distance to the nearest integer. Ordinary distance on the real line would be insufficient because the complex exponential is periodic.
Let and . Multiplication by this unit-modulus factor leaves unchanged and places the frequencies of in . Put . The permitted Sobolev–Gallagher inequality, in the form needed here, is
For , the arcs about the have disjoint interiors on the circle group. Summing and applying the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality gives
The Cauchy-Schwarz inequality here follows by expanding and minimizing over . For completeness, the finite-interval Parseval identities follow by expanding the squares: is one at and zero at every other integer . Thus and . We obtain the exponential-sum large sieve bound
If , there is at most one point, and the direct Cauchy-Schwarz inequality bound proves the same assertion.