English

A p-adic identity for Wieferich primes

Number Theory 2021-12-09 v1

Abstract

Let nn be a positive integer, pp be an odd prime and integers a,b0a,b \not= 0 with gcd(a,b)=1gcd(a,b)=1, pabp \nmid ab, and p(an±bn)p|(a^n \pm b^n), we prove the identity νp(an±bn)νp(n)=νp(ap1bp1).\nu_p(a^n \pm b^n)-\nu_p(n)=\nu_p(a^{p-1}-b^{p-1}). An unintended interesting immediate consequence is the following variant of Wieferich's criterion for FLT : Let xn+yn=znx^n+y^n=z^n with nn prime and x,y,zx,y,z pairwise relatively prime. Then every odd prime pyp|y satisfies νp(zp1xp1)n1\nu_p(z^{p-1}-x^{p-1}) \ge n-1 and every odd prime pxp|x satisfies νp(zp1yp1)n1\nu_p(z^{p-1}-y^{p-1}) \ge n-1, and every odd prime pzp|z satisfies νp(xp1yp1)n1\nu_p(x^{p-1}-y^{p-1}) \ge n-1, ie. every odd prime dividing xyzxyz is a Wieferich prime of order at least n1n-1 to some base pair. In the "first case" where nxyzn \nmid xyz, the lower bound for the Wieferich order can be improved to nn. This gives us very strong intuition why there should not be any solution even for moderately large nn.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2112.04173,
  title  = {A p-adic identity for Wieferich primes},
  author = {Kok Seng Chua},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2112.04173},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

5 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-24T08:08:42.964Z