English

Linear Congruences and a Conjecture of Bibak

Number Theory 2024-03-05 v1

Abstract

We address three questions posed by Bibak \cite{KB20}, and generalize some results of Bibak, Lehmer and K G Ramanathan on solutions of linear congruences i=1kaixib\Modn\sum_{i=1}^k a_i x_i \equiv b \Mod{n}. In particular, we obtain explicit expressions for the number of solutions where xix_i's are squares modulo nn. In addition, we obtain expressions for the number of solutions with order restrictions x1xkx_1 \geq \cdots \geq x_k or, with strict order restrictions x1>>xkx_1> \cdots > x_k in some special cases. In these results, the expressions for the number of solutions involve Ramanujan sums and are obtained using their properties.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2403.01923,
  title  = {Linear Congruences and a Conjecture of Bibak},
  author = {C. G. Karthick Babu and Ranjan Bera and B. Sury},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2403.01923},
  year   = {2024}
}