We investigate, using the weighted linear sieve, the distribution of almost-primes among the residue classes (mod p) that generate the multiplicative group of reduced residue classes. We are concerned with finding an upper bound for the least prime or almost-prime primitive root (mod p) that holds uniformly for all p, analogous to Linnik's Theorem on a uniform upper bound for the least prime in a single arithmetic progression (mod p).
We provide an explicit estimate on the least primitive root mod $p^{2}$. We show, in particular, that every prime $p$ has a primitive root mod $p^{2}$ that is less than $p^{0.99}$.
In this paper we will consider new bounds on the smallest primitive root modulo a prime. We will make more judicious use of the Pòlya--Vinogradov and Burgess inequalities, and use them to prove that the smallest primitive root is smaller than $p^{0.68}$ for all primes $p$.
We use character sum estimates to give a bound on the least square-full primitive root modulo a prime. Specifically, we show that there is a square-full primitive root mod $p$ less than $p^{2/3 + 3/(4 \sqrt{e})+ ε}$, and we give some conditional bounds.
We obtain a simple relations for the Newman sum over multiples of a prime with a primitive or semiprimitive root 2. We consider the case of p=17 as well.
We prove that any prime $p$ satisfying $ϕ(p-1)\leq (p-1)/4$ contains two consecutive quadratic non-residues modulo $p$ neither of which is a primitive root modulo $p$.
We make many new observations on primitive roots modulo primes. For an odd prime $p$ and an integer $c$, we establish a theorem concerning $\sum_g(\frac{g+c}p)$, where $g$ runs over all the primitive roots modulo $p$ among $1,\ldots,p-1$, and $(\frac{\cdot}p)$ denotes the Legendre symbol. On the basis of our numerical computations, we formulate 35 conjectures involving primitive roots modulo primes. For example, we conjecture that for any prime $p$ there is a primitive root $g<p$ modulo $p$ with $g-1$ a square, and that for any prime $p>3$ there is a prime $q<p$ with the Bernoulli number $B_{q…
We study the number of primes with a given primitive root and in an arithmetic progression under the assumption of a suitable form of the generalized Riemann Hypothesis. Previous work of Lenstra, Moree and Stevenhagen has given asymptotics without an explicit error term, we provide an explicit error term by combining their work with the method of Hooley regarding Artin's primitive root conjecture. We give an application to a Diophantine problem involving primes with a given primitive root.
A Lehmer number modulo a prime $p$ is an integer $a$ with $1 \leq a \leq p-1$ whose inverse $\bar{a}$ within the same range has opposite parity. Lehmer numbers that are also primitive roots have been discussed by Wang and Wang in an endeavour to count the number of ways $1$ can be expressed as the sum of two primitive roots that are also Lehmer numbers (an extension of a question of S. Golomb). In this paper we give an explicit estimate for the number of Lehmer primitive roots modulo $p$ and prove that, for all primes $p \neq 2,3,7$, Lehmer primitive roots exist. We also make explicit the know…
For a class of Lucas sequences ${x_n}$, we show that if $n$ is a positive integer then $x_n$ has a primitive prime factor which divides $x_n$ to an odd power, except perhaps when $n = 1, 2, 3 or 6$. This has several desirable consequences.
The first purpose of our paper is to show how Hooley's celebrated method leading to his conditional proof of the Artin conjecture on primitive roots can be combined with the Hardy-Littlewood circle method. We do so by studying the number of representations of an odd integer as a sum of three primes, all of which have prescribed primitive roots. The second purpose is to analyse the singular series. In particular, using results of Lenstra, Stevenhagen and Moree, we provide a partial factorisation as an Euler product and prove that this does not extend to a complete factorisation.
We study the difference between the number of primitive roots modulo $p$ and modulo $p+k$ for prime pairs $p,p+k$. Assuming the Bateman-Horn conjecture, we prove the existence of strong sign biases for such pairs. More importantly, we prove that for a small positive proportion of prime pairs $p,p+k$, the dominant inequality is reversed.
Let a,f and g be integers, with a and f coprime. Under the generalized Riemann hypothesis it follows from work of Hooley and Lenstra that the set of primes p such that p=a(mod f) and g is primitive root mod p has a natural density. In this note we explicitly evaluate this density and give some applications of this result.
We derive, for all prime moduli p except those in a very thin set, an upper bound for the least prime primitive root (mod p) of order of magnitude a constant power of log p. The improvement over previous results, where the upper bound was log p to an exponent tending to infinity with p, lies in the use of the linear sieve (a particular version called the shifted sieve) rather than Brun's sieve. The same methods allow us to rederive a conditional result of Shoup on the least prime primitive root (mod p) for all prime moduli p, assuming the generalized Riemann hypothesis. We also extend both res…
We prove that for all $q>61$, every non-zero element in the finite field $\mathbb{F}_{q}$ can be written as a linear combination of two primitive roots of $\mathbb{F}_{q}$. This resolves a conjecture posed by Cohen and Mullen.
A primitive root modulo an integer $n$ is the generator of the multiplicative group of integers modulo $n$. Gauss proved that for any prime number $p$ greater than $3$, the sum of its primitive roots is congruent to $1$ modulo $p$ while its product is congruent to $μ(p-1)$ modulo $p$, where $μ$ is the Möbius function. In this paper, we will generalize these two interesting congruences and give the congruences of the sum and the product of integers with the same index modulo $n$.
Grosswald's conjecture is that $g(p)$, the least primitive root modulo $p$, satisfies $g(p) \leq \sqrt{p} - 2$ for all $p>409$. We make progress towards this conjecture by proving that $g(p) \leq \sqrt{p} -2$ for all $409<p< 2.5\times 10^{15}$ and for all $p>3.67\times 10^{71}$.
Numerical evidence suggests that for only about $2\%$ of pairs $p,p+2$ of twin primes, $p+2$ has more primitive roots than does $p$. If this occurs, we say that $p$ is exceptional (there are only two exceptional pairs with $5 \leq p \leq 10{,}000$). Assuming the Bateman-Horn conjecture, we prove that at least $0.47\%$ of twin prime pairs are exceptional and at least $65.13\%$ are not exceptional. We also conjecture a precise formula for the proportion of exceptional twin primes.
In this paper we study some structure properties of primitive weird numbers in terms of their factorization. We give sufficient conditions to ensure that a positive integer is weird. Two algorithms for generating weird numbers having a given number of distinct prime factors are presented. These algorithms yield primitive weird numbers of the form $mp_1\dots p_k$ for a suitable deficient positive integer $m$ and primes $p_1,\dots,p_k$ and generalize a recent technique developed for generating primitive weird numbers of the form $2^np_1p_2$. The same techniques can be used to search for odd weir…
We consider the sums of the form $$ S=\sum_{x=1}^{N} \exp\big((ax+b_1g_1^x+... +b_rg_r^x)/p \big) $$, where $p$ is prime and $g_1,..., g_r$ are primitive roots $\pmod p$. An almost forty years old problem of L. J. Mordell asks to find a nontrivial estimate of $S$ when at least two of the coefficients $b_1,...,b_r$ are not divizible by $p$. Here we obtain a nontrivial bound of the average of these sums when $g_1$ runs over all primitive roots $\pmod p$.
Suppose $ m,n\geq 2 $ are co prime integers. We prove certain new symmetries of the base $ n $ representation of $ 1/m $, and in particular characterize the subgroup generated by $ n $ inside $ (\mathbb{Z}/m\mathbb{Z})^\times $. As an application we give a sufficient condition for a prime $ p $ such that a non square number $ n $ is a primitive root modulo $ p $.
We show under the Generalised Riemann Hypothesis that for every $δ>0$, almost every prime $q$ in $[Q,2Q]$ has the expected of prime primitive roots in the interval $[x,x+x^{\frac{1}2+δ}]$ provided $Q$ is not more than $x^{\frac{2}{3}-ε}$. We obtain this via a variant of the classical truncated Perron's formula for the partial sums of the coefficients of a Dirichlet series.
We establish a connection between semi-primitive roots of the multiplicative group of integers modulo $2^{k}$ where $k\geq 3$, and the logarithmic base in the algorithm introduced by Fit-Florea and Matula (2004) for computing the discrete logarithm modulo $2^{k}$. Fit-Florea and Matula used properties of the semi-primitive root 3 modulo $2^{k}$ to obtain their results and provided a conversion formula for other possible bases. We show that their results can be extended to any semi-primitive root modulo $2^{k}$ and also present a generalized version of their algorithm to find the discrete logar…
This is an expanded version of a write-up of a talk given in the fall of 2000 in Oberwolfach. A large part of it is intended to be understandable by non-number theorists with a mathematical background. The talk covered some of the history, results and ideas connected with Artin's celebrated primitive root conjecture dating from 1927. In the update several new results established after 2000 are also discussed.
Let a and f be coprime positive integers. Let g be an integer. Under the Generalized Riemann Hypothesis (GRH) it follows by a result of H.W. Lenstra that the set of primes p such that p=a(mod f) and g is a primitive root modulo p has a natural density. In this note this density is explicitly evaluated with an Euler product as result.
Let $p$ be a prime and let $g(p)$ be the least primitive root modulo $p$. We prove that for any $ε>0$ and $p$ large enough the bound \begin{align} g(p)\ll p^{\frac{1}{4\sqrt{e}}+ε} \nonumber \end{align} holds for most prime $p$ such that $p-1$ does not have small prime factors, but $2$. We also give an explicit description of the exceptional set.
This paper is continuation of the paper "Primitive roots in quadratic field". We consider an analogue of Artin's primitive root conjecture for algebraic numbers which is not a unit in real quadratic fields. Given such an algebraic number, for a rational prime $p$ which is inert in the field the maximal order of the unit modulo $p$ is $p^2-1$. An extension of Artin's conjecture is that there are infinitely many such inert primes for which this order is maximal. we show that for any choice of 85 algebraic numbers satisfying a certain simple restriction, there is at least one of the algebraic num…
We discuss how one could study asymptotics of cyclotomic quantities via the mean values of certain multiplicative functions and their Dirichlet series using a theorem of Delange. We show how this could provide a new approach to Artin's conjecture on primitive roots. We focus on whether a fixed prime has a certain order modulo infinitely many other primes. We also give an estimate for the mean value of one such Dirichlet series.
A famous conjecture of Artin states that there are infinitely many prime numbers for which a fixed integer $g$ is a primitive root, provided $g \neq -1$ and $g$ is not a perfect square. Thanks to work of Hooley, we know that this conjecture is true, conditional on the truth of the Generalized Riemann Hypothesis. Using a combination of Hooley's analysis and the techniques of Maynard-Tao used to prove the existence of bounded gaps between primes, Pollack has shown that (conditional on GRH) there are bounded gaps between primes with a prescribed primitive root. In the present article, we provide …
A set of natural numbers is primitive if no element of the set divides another. Erdős conjectured that if S is any primitive set, then \sum_{n\in S} 1/(n log n) \le \sum_{n\in ¶} 1/(p log p), where ¶denotes the set of primes. In this paper, we make progress towards this conjecture by restricting the setting to smaller sets of primes. Let P denote any subset of ¶, and let N(P) denote the set of natural numbers all of whose prime factors are in P. We say that P is Erdős-best among primitive subsets of N(P) if the inequality \sum_{n\in S} 1/(n log n) \le \sum_{n\in P} 1/(p log p) holds for every …
In this paper, we introduce and study a variant of Kummer's notion of (ir)regularity of primes which we call G-irregularity. It is based on Genocchi numbers $G_n$, rather than Bernoulli number $B_n.$ We say that an odd prime $p$ is G-irregular if it divides at least one of the integers $G_2,G_4,\ldots, G_{p-3}$, and G-regular otherwise. We show that, as in Kummer's case, G-irregularity is related to the divisibility of some class number. Furthermore, we obtain some results on the distribution of G-irregular primes. In particular, we show that each primitive residue class contains infinitely ma…
Artin's Conjecture on Primitive Roots states that a non-square nonunit integer $a$ is a primitive root modulo $p$ for the positive proportion of $p$. This conjecture remains open, but on average, there are many results due to P. J. Stephens. There is a natural generalization of the conjecture for composite moduli. We can consider $a$ as the primitive root modulo, $(\mathbb{Z}/n\mathbb{Z})^{*}$ if $a$ is an element of the maximal exponent in the group. The behavior is more complex for composite moduli, and the corresponding average results are provided by S. Li and C. Pomerance, and recently by…
We consider a modification of the classical number theoretic question about the gaps between consecutive primitive roots modulo a prime $p$, which by the well-known result of Burgess are known to be at most $p^{1/4+o(1)}$. Here we measure the distance in the Hamming metric and show that if $p$ is a sufficiently large $r$-bit prime, then for any integer $n \in [1,p]$ one can obtain a primitive root modulo $p$ by changing at most $0.11002786...r$ binary digits of $n$. This is stronger than what can be deduced from the Burgess result. Experimentally, the number of necessary bit changes is very sm…
Fix an integer $g \neq -1$ that is not a perfect square. In 1927, Artin conjectured that there are infinitely many primes for which $g$ is a primitive root. Forty years later, Hooley showed that Artin's conjecture follows from the Generalized Riemann Hypothesis (GRH). We inject Hooley's analysis into the Maynard--Tao work on bounded gaps between primes. This leads to the following GRH-conditional result: Fix an integer $m \geq 2$. If $q_1 < q_2 < q_3 < \dots$ is the sequence of primes possessing $g$ as a primitive root, then $\liminf_{n\to\infty} (q_{n+(m-1)}-q_n) \leq C_m$, where $C_m$ is a f…
We extend the character sum method for the computation of densities in Artin primitive root problems developed by H. W. Lenstra and the authors to the situation of radical extensions of arbitrary rank. Our algebraic set-up identifies the key parameters of the situation at hand, and obviates the lengthy analytic multiplicative number theory arguments that used to go into the computation of actual densities. It yields a conceptual interpretation of the formulas obtained, and enables us to extend their range of application in a systematic way.
We examine the sums $S(k,\,n)$ of the $k-$th powers of the $ϕ(n)$ integers $α_1<α_2<\cdots<α_{ϕ(n)}$ less than and prime to $n$ (Euler set) and prove a formula (new) for $S(3,\,n)$. If $n$ equals a prime $p$, we prove a theorem showing a connection of $S(3,\,p)$ with Artin's conjectural constant for primitive roots and with other functions involving primes.
We examine linear sums of primitive roots and their inverses in finite fields. In particular, we refine a result by Li and Han, and show that every $p> 13$ has a pair of primitive roots $a$ and $b$ such that $a+ b$ and $a^{-1} + b^{-1}$ are also primitive roots mod $p$.
Let $E/\mathbb{Q}$ be an elliptic curve. For a prime $p$ of good reduction, let $r(E,p)$ be the smallest non-negative integer that gives the $x$-coordinate of a point of maximal order in the group $E(\mathbb{F}_p)$. We prove unconditionally that $r(E,p)> 0.72\log\log p$ for infinitely many $p$, and $r(E,p) > 0.36 \log p$ under the assumption of the Generalized Riemann Hypothesis. This can be viewed as elliptic curve analogues of classical lower bounds on the least primitive root of a prime.
Let $q\geq 1$ be any integer and let $ ε\in [\frac{1}{11}, \frac{1}{2})$ be a given real number. In this short note, we prove that for all primes $p$ satisfying $$ p\equiv 1\pmod{q}, \quad \log\log p > \frac{\log 6.83}{\frac{1}{2}-ε} \mbox{ and } \frac{ϕ(p-1)}{p-1} \leq \frac{1}{2} - ε, $$ there exists a quadratic non-residue $g$ which is not a primitive root modulo $p$ such that $gcd\left(g, \frac{p-1}{q}\right) = 1$.
E. Artin conjectured that any integer $a >1$ which is not a perfect square is a primitive root modulo $p$ for infinitely many primes $p.$ Let $f_a(p)$ be the multiplicative order of the non-square integer $a$ modulo the prime $p.$ M. R. Murty and S. Srinivasan [10] showed that if $\sum_{p<x} \frac 1 {f_a(p)}= O(x^{1/4})$ then Artin's conjecture is true for $a.$ We relate the Murty-Srinivasan condition to sums involving the cyclotomic periods from the subfields of $\mathbb Q(e^{2πi/p})$ corresponding to the subgroups $<a> \subseteq \mathbb F*_p.$
We consider an analogue of Artin's primitive root conjecture for units in real quadratic fields. Given such a nontrivial unit, for a rational prime p which is inert in the field the maximal order of the unit modulo p is p+1. An extension of Artin's conjecture is that there are infinitely many such inert primes for which this order is maximal. This is known at present only under the Generalized Riemann Hypothesis. Unconditionally, we show that for any choice of 7 units in different real quadratic fields satisfying a certain simple restriction, there is at least one of the units which satisfies …
Primitive prime divisors play an important role in group theory and number theory. We study a certain number theoretic quantity, called $Φ^*_n(q)$, which is closely related to the cyclotomic polynomial $Φ_n(x)$ and to primitive prime divisors of $q^n-1$. Our definition of $Φ^*_n(q)$ is novel, and we prove it is equivalent to the definition given by Hering. Given positive constants $c$ and $k$, we give an algorithm for determining all pairs $(n,q)$ with $Φ^*_n(q)\le cn^k$. This algorithm is used to extend (and correct) a result of Hering which is useful for classifying certain families of subgr…
We define a primitive index of an integer in a sequence to be the index of the term with the integer as a primitive divisor. For the sequences $k^u+h^u$ and $k^u-h^u$, we discern a formula to find the primitive indexes of any composite number given the primitive indexes of its prime factors. We show how this formula reduces to a formula relating the multiplicative order of $k$ modulo $N$ to that of its prime factors. We then introduce immediate consequences of the formula: certain sequences which yield the same primitive indexes for numbers with the same unique prime factors, an expansion of t…
Let $\mathbb{F}_p$ be a finite field of size $p$ where $p$ is an odd prime. Let $f(x)\in\mathbb{F}_p[x]$ be a polynomial of positive degree $k$ that is not a $d$-th power in $\mathbb{F}_p[x]$ for all $d\mid p-1$. Furthermore, we require that $f(x)$ and $x$ are coprime. The main purpose of this paper is to give an estimate of the number of pairs $(ξ,ξ^αf(ξ))$ such that both $ξ$ and $ξ^αf(ξ)$ are primitive roots of $p$ where $α$ is a given integer. This answers a question of Han and Zhang.
D.H. Lehmer found a quadratic polynomial such that 326 is a primitive root for the first 206 primes represented by this polynomial. It is shown that this is related to the class number one problem and prime producing quadratics. An algorithm is described to find more impressive examples in the same spirit. Y. Gallot used it to establish the current record in which 206 is being replaced by 31082.
Let $p$ be an odd prime and let ${\mathbb F}_p$ denote the finite field with $p$ elements. Suppose that $g$ is a primitive root of ${\mathbb F}_p$. Define the permutation $τ_g:\,{\mathcal H}_p\to{\mathcal H}_p$ by $$ τ_g(b):=\begin{cases} g^b,&\text{if }g^b\in{\mathcal H}_p,\\ -g^b,&\text{if }g^b\not\in{\mathcal H}_p,\\ \end{cases} $$ for each $b\in{\mathcal H}_p$, where ${\mathcal H}_p=\{1,2,\ldots,(p-1)/2\}$ is viewed as a subset of ${\mathbb F}_p$. In this paper, we investigate the sign of $τ_g$. For example, if $p\equiv 5\pmod{8}$, then $$ (-1)^{|τ_g|}=(-1)^{\frac{1}{4}(h(-4p)+2)} $$ for e…
We give a method for producing explicit bounds on $g(p)$, the least primitive root modulo $p$. Using our method we show that $g(p)<2r\,2^{rω(p-1)}\,p^{\frac{1}{4}+\frac{1}{4r}}$ for $p>10^{56}$ where $r\geq 2$ is an integer parameter. This result beats existing bounds that rely on explicit versions of the Burgess inequality. Our main result allows one to derive bounds of differing shapes for various ranges of $p$. For example, our method also allows us to show that $g(p)<p^{5/8}$ for all $p\geq 10^{22}$ and $g(p)<p^{1/2}$ for $p\geq 10^{56}$.
$ $The aim of this thesis is to lower the bound on square-free primitive roots modulo primes. Let $g^{\Box}(p)$ be the least square-free primitive root modulo $p$. We have proven the following two theorems. Theorem 0.1. $$g^{\Box}(p) < p^{0.88}\quad\text{for all primes }p.$$ Theorem 0.2. $$g^{\Box}(p) < p^{0.63093}\quad\text{for all primes } p < 2.5\times10^{15} \text{ and }p > 9.63\times10^{65}.$$ Theorem 0.1 shows an improvement in the best known bound while Theorem 0.2 shows for which primes we can prove the theoretical lower bound. After some introductory information in Chapter 1, we will …
Garcia, Kahoro, and Luca showed that the Bateman-Horn conjecture implies $ϕ(p-1) \geq ϕ(p+1)$ for a majority of twin-primes pairs $p,p+2$ and that the reverse inequality holds for a small positive proportion of the twin primes. That is, $p$ tends to have more primitive roots than does $p+2$. We prove that Dickson's conjecture, which is much weaker than Bateman-Horn, implies that the quotients $\frac{ϕ(p+1)}{ϕ(p-1)}$, as $p,p+2$ range over the twin primes, are dense in the positive reals. We also establish several Schinzel-type theorems, some of them unconditional, about the behavior of $\frac{…
Let $m$ be a natural number, and let $\mathcal{Q}$ be a set containing at least $\exp(C m)$ primes. We show that one can find infinitely many strings of $m$ consecutive primes each of which has some $q\in\mathcal{Q}$ as a primitive root, all lying in an interval of length $O_{\mathcal{Q}}(\exp(C'm))$. This is a bounded gaps variant of a theorem of Gupta and Ram Murty. We also prove a result on an elliptic analogue of Artin's conjecture. Let $E/\mathbb{Q}$ be an elliptic curve with an irrational $2$-torsion point. Assume GRH. Then for every $m$, there are infinitely many strings of $m$ consecut…
Let K be a number field, let f(x) in K(x) be a rational function of degree d> 1, and let z in K be a wandering point such that f^n(z) is nonzero for all n > 0. We prove that if the abc-conjecture holds for K, then for all but finitely many positive integers n, there is a prime p of K such that p | f^n(z) and p does not divide f^m(z) for all positive integers m < n. We prove the same result unconditionally for function fields of characteristic 0 when f is not isotrivial.
We consider primitive divisors of terms of integer sequences defined by quadratic polynomials. Apart from some small counterexamples, when a term has a primitive divisor, that primitive divisor is unique. It seems likely that the number of terms with a primitive divisor has a natural density. We discuss two heuristic arguments to suggest a value for that density, one using recent advances made about the distribution of roots of polynomial congruences.
In a paper of P. Paillier and J. Villar a conjecture is made about the malleability of an RSA modulus. In this paper we present an explicit algorithm refuting the conjecture. Concretely we can factorize an RSA modulus n using very little information on the factorization of a concrete n' coprime to n. However, we believe the conjecture might be true, when imposing some extra conditions on the auxiliary n' allowed to be used. In particular, the paper shows how subtle the notion of malleability is.
We give an algorithm to enumerate all primitive abundant numbers (briefly, PANs) with a fixed $Ω$ (the number of prime factors counted with their multiplicity), and explicitly find all PANs up to $Ω=6$, count all PANs and square-free PANs up to $Ω=7$ and count all odd PANs and odd square-free PANs up to $Ω=8$. We find primitive weird numbers (briefly, PWNs) with up to 16 prime factors, improving the previous results of [Amato-Hasler-Melfi-Parton] where PWNs with up to 6 prime factors have been given. The largest PWN we find has 14712 digits: as far as we know, this is the largest example exist…
