The main objective of this article is to study the exponential sums associated to Fourier coefficients of modular forms supported at numbers having a fixed set of prime factors. This is achieved by establishing an improvement on Shparlinski’s bound for exponential sums attached to certain linear recurrence sequences over finite fields.

A theorem of Serre states that almost all plane conics over Q${{\mathbb {Q}}}$ have no rational point. We prove an analogue of this for families of conics parametrised by elliptic curves using elliptic divisibility sequences and a version of the Selberg sieve for elliptic curves. We also give more general results for specialisations of Brauer groups, which yields applications to norm form equations.

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A theorem of Serre states that almost all plane conics over Q have no rational point. We prove an analogue of this for families of conics parametrised by elliptic curves using elliptic divisibility sequences and a version of the Selberg sieve for elliptic curves. We also give more general results for specialisations of Brauer groups, which yields applications to norm form equations.