Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2013 iii Paper 23 2 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
An even Dirichlet character satisfies , while an odd Dirichlet character satisfies . Write or for its character parity and, for , define the Dirichlet character theta functionFor a primitive Dirichlet character whose conductor of a Dirichlet character is , the term at zero is zero. Put , using the positive exponential, and . The primitive Gauss sum of a Dirichlet character has magnitude , so . The theta transformation isThus the powers are in the even case and in the odd case; the odd root number contains . The conjugate character is necessary for a nonreal character. These formulas also follow by applying Poisson summation to the Gaussian function on each residue class, and to its derivative for odd parity. For the primitive principal Dirichlet character whose conductor of a Dirichlet character is one, use the ordinary Jacobi theta function with constant term one; its transformation has root number one.