Prime-power Gauss sum bound ($|q^{-1/2}\tau (\chi )|\le 1$)

For a character of modulus $p^k$, a primitive Dirichlet character attains the bound by finite Plancherel theorem. An imprimitive character with $k\ge 2$ has periodic values modulo $p^{k-1}$, so its frequency-one sum vanishes. The principal Dirichlet character modulo $p$ has unnormalized sum $-1$. The sign convention of the exponential does not affect its magnitude.