English

A congruence involving harmonic sums modulo $p^{\alpha}q^{\beta}$

Number Theory 2016-11-29 v2

Abstract

In 2014, Wang and Cai established the following harmonic congruence for any odd prime pp and positive integer rr, \begin{equation*} Z(p^{r})\equiv-2p^{r-1}B_{p-3} ~(\bmod ~ p^{r}), \end{equation*} where Z(n)=i+j+k=ni,j,kPn1ijk Z(n)=\sum\limits_{i+j+k=n\atop{i,j,k\in\mathcal{P}_{n}}}\frac{1}{ijk} and Pn\mathcal{P}_{n} denote the set of positive integers which are prime to nn. In this note, we obtain a congruence for distinct odd primes p, qp,~q and positive integers α, β\alpha,~\beta, \begin{equation*} Z(p^{\alpha}q^{\beta})\equiv 2(2-q)(1-\frac{1}{q^{3}})p^{\alpha-1}q^{\beta-1}B_{p-3}\pmod{p^{\alpha}} \end{equation*} and the necessary and sufficient condition for \begin{equation*} Z(p^{\alpha}q^{\beta})\equiv 0\pmod{p^{\alpha}q^{\beta}}. \end{equation*} Finally, we raise a conjecture that for n>1n>1 and odd prime power pαnp^{\alpha}||n, α1\alpha\geq1, \begin{eqnarray} \nonumber Z(n)\equiv \prod\limits_{q|n\atop{q\neq p}}(1-\frac{2}{q})(1-\frac{1}{q^{3}})(-\frac{2n}{p})B_{p-3}\pmod{p^{\alpha}}. \end{eqnarray}

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1503.02798,
  title  = {A congruence involving harmonic sums modulo $p^{\alpha}q^{\beta}$},
  author = {Tianxin Cai and Zhongyan Shen and Lirui Jia},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1503.02798},
  year   = {2016}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-22T08:48:26.681Z