English

On a congruence involving harmonic series and Bernoulli numbers

Number Theory 2021-10-20 v1

Abstract

In 2003, Zhao discovered a curious congruence involving harmonic series and Bernoulli numbers: for any odd prime pp, i,j,k1gcd(ijk,p)=1i+j+k=p1ijk2Bp3(modp),\sum_{\substack{i,j,k\ge 1\\\gcd(ijk,p)=1\\i+j+k=p}}\frac{1}{ijk}\equiv -2B_{p-3} \pmod{p}, where BnB_n is the nn-th Bernoulli number. This congruence was generalized by Wang and Cai in 2014, and Cai, Shen and Jia in 2017 by replacing the odd prime pp in the summation and modulus with an odd prime power, and a product of two odd prime powers, respectively. In particular, Cai, Shen and Jia proposed a conjectural congruence: for any positive integer nn with an odd prime factor pp such that prnp^r \parallel n where r1r\ge 1, i,j,k1gcd(ijk,n)=1i+j+k=n1ijk2Bp3npprime qnqp(12q)(11q3)(modpr).\sum_{\substack{i,j,k\ge 1\\\gcd(ijk,n)=1\\i+j+k=n}}\frac{1}{ijk}\equiv -2B_{p-3}\cdot \frac{n}{p}\cdot \prod_{\substack{\text{prime $q\mid n$}\\q\ne p}}\left(1-\frac{2}{q}\right)\left(1-\frac{1}{q^3}\right) \pmod{p^r}. In this paper, we establish the following generalization of their conjecture: for any positive integer nn with an odd prime factor pp such that prnp^r \parallel n where r1r\ge 1, i,j,k1gcd(ijk,n)=1a1i+a2j+a3k=An1ijk2Bp3npAg33(1a12g12+1a22g22+1a32g32)×prime qnqp(12q)(11q3)(modpr),\begin{aligned} \sum_{\substack{i,j,k\ge 1\\\gcd(ijk,n)=1\\a_1 i+a_2 j+a_3 k=An}}\frac{1}{ijk}&\equiv -2B_{p-3}\cdot \frac{n}{p}\cdot \frac{Ag^3}{3}\left(\frac{1}{a_1^2 g_1^2}+\frac{1}{a_2^2 g_2^2}+\frac{1}{a_3^2 g_3^2}\right)\\ &\quad\times \prod_{\substack{\text{prime $q\mid n$}\\q\ne p}}\left(1-\frac{2}{q}\right)\left(1-\frac{1}{q^3}\right) \pmod{p^r}, \end{aligned} where a1a_1, a2a_2 and a3a_3 are positive integers coprime to pp, and AA is a positive common multiple of a1a_1, a2a_2 and a3a_3. Also, g1=gcd(a2,a3)g_1=\gcd(a_2,a_3), g2=gcd(a3,a1)g_2=\gcd(a_3,a_1), g3=gcd(a1,a2)g_3=\gcd(a_1,a_2) and g=gcd(a1,a2,a3)g=\gcd(a_1,a_2,a_3).

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2110.09629,
  title  = {On a congruence involving harmonic series and Bernoulli numbers},
  author = {Shane Chern},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2110.09629},
  year   = {2021}
}