Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
Let x denote a primitive character to a prime-power modulus k = pα. The expected estimate
for the incomplete character sum has been established for r = 1 and 2 by D. A. Burgess and recently, he settled the case r = 3 for all primes p < 3, (cf. [2] for the proof and for references). Here, a short proof of the main inequality (Theorem 2) which leads to this result is presented; the argument being based upon my characterization in [3] of the solution-set of a related congruence.