English

Counting linear congruence systems with a fixed number of solutions

Number Theory 2025-07-08 v1 Combinatorics

Abstract

For a prime pp and a positive integer ss consider a homogeneous linear system over the ring Zps\mathbb{Z}_{p^s} (the ring of integers modulo psp^s) described by an n×mn \times m-matrix. The possible number of solutions to such a system is pjp^j, where j=0,1,,smj=0,1,\ldots, sm. We study the problem of how many n×mn \times m-matrices over Zps\mathbb{Z}_{p^s} there are given that we have exactly pjp^j homogeneous solutions. For the case s=1s=1 (when Zps\mathbb{Z}_{p^s} is a field) George von Landsberg proved a general formula in 1893. However, there seems to be few published general results for the case s>1s>1 except when we have a unique solution (j=0j=0). In this article we present recursive methods for counting such matrices and present explicit formulas for the case when jsj\le s and nmn\ge m. We will use a generalization of Euler's ϕ\phi-function and Gaussian binomial coefficients to express our formulas. As an application we compute the probability that gcd(det(A),ps)(\det(A),p^s) gives the number of solutions to the quadratic system Ax=0Ax=0 in Zps\mathbb{Z}_{p^s}.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2507.04688,
  title  = {Counting linear congruence systems with a fixed number of solutions},
  author = {Marcus Nilsson},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2507.04688},
  year   = {2025}
}