Estimation of Kloosterman sums with primes and its application

Suppose that p is a large prime. In this paper, we prove that, for any natural number N < p the following estimate holds: $$ \left. {\mathop {\max }\limits_{\left( {a,p} \right) = 1} } \right|\left. {\sum\limits_{q \leqslant N} {e^{{{2\pi iaq*} \mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {{2\pi iaq*} p}} \right. \kern-\nulldelimiterspace} p}} } } \right| \leqslant \left( {N^{{{15} \mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {{15} {16}}} \right. \kern-\nulldelimiterspace} {16}}} + N^{{2 \mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {2 3}} \right. \kern-\nulldelimiterspace} 3}} p^{{1 \mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {1 4}} \right. \kern-\nulldelimiterspace} 4}} } \right)p^{0\left( 1 \right)} , $$ where q is a prime and q* is the least natural number satisfying the congruence qq* ≡ 1 (modp). This estimate implies the following statement: if p > N > p ^16/17+? , where ? > 0, and if we have λ ? 0 (modp), then the number J of solutions of the congruence $$ q_1 \left( {q_2 + q_3 } \right) \equiv \lambda \left( {\bmod p} \right) $$ for the primes q ₁, q ₂, q ₃ ≤ N can be expressed as $$ J = \frac{{\pi \left( N \right)^3 }} {p}\left( {1 + O\left( {p^{ - \delta } } \right)} \right), \delta = \delta \left( \varepsilon \right) > 0. $$ This statement improves a recent result of Friedlander, Kurlberg, and Shparlinski in which the condition p > N > p ^38/39+? was required.