Square-root cancellation for sums of factorization functions over short intervals in function fields

Abstract: We present new estimates for sums of the divisor function, and other similar arithmetic functions, in short intervals over function fields. (When the intervals are long, one obtains a good estimate from the Riemann hypothesis.) We obtain an estimate that approaches square root cancellation as long as the characteristic of the finite field is relatively large. This is done by a geometric method, inspired by work of Hast and Matei, where we calculate the singular locus of a variety whose $\mathbb F_q$-points control this sum. This has applications to highly unbalanced moments of $L$-functions.