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On Diophantine $m$-tuples related to primitive elements of finite fields

Number Theory 2026-07-21 v1 Combinatorics

Abstract

Inspired by recent works on Diophantine tuples over finite fields, in this paper we consider Diophantine tuples related to primitive elements of finite fields. Let Fq\mathbb{F}_q be the finite field with qq elements and Fq=Fq{0}\mathbb{F}_q^*=\mathbb{F}_q\setminus\{0\} be the multiplicative cyclic group of all non-zero elements over Fq\mathbb{F}_q. An element gFqg\in\mathbb{F}_q is called primitive if gg generates the group Fq\mathbb{F}_q^*. A set {x1,x2,,xm}Fq\{x_1,x_2,\cdots,x_m\}\subseteq\mathbb{F}_q^* of mm elements is said to be a P\mathcal{P}-Diophantine mm-tuple over Fq\mathbb{F}_q if xixj+1x_ix_j+1 is primitive for any 1ijm1\le i\le j\le m. Let NmN_m denote the number of P\mathcal{P}-Diophantine tuples over Fq\mathbb{F}_q. Then we obtain the asymptotic formula m!Nm=(φ(q1)q1)m(m+1)/2qm+Om,r(qm12+r),m!\cdot N_m=\left(\frac{\varphi(q-1)}{q-1}\right)^{m(m+1)/2}q^m+O_{m,r}\left(q^{m-\frac{1}{2}+r}\right), where φ()\varphi(\cdot) is the Euler totient function and r(0,1/2)r\in(0, 1/2) is an arbitrary real number. Moreover, we prove that there exists a P\mathcal{P}-Diophantine mm-tuple over Fq\mathbb{F}_q whenever qexp(exp(m(m+1)))q\ge \exp(\exp(m(m+1))).

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2607.18896,
  title  = {On Diophantine $m$-tuples related to primitive elements of finite fields},
  author = {Hai-Liang Wu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2607.18896},
  year   = {2026}
}

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