English

On sums and products in a field

Number Theory 2018-07-04 v1

Abstract

In this paper we study sums and products in a field. Let FF be a field with ch(F)2{\rm ch}(F)\not=2, where ch(F){\rm ch}(F) is the characteristic of FF. For any integer k4k\ge4, we show that each xFx\in F can be written as a1++aka_1+\ldots+a_k with a1,,akFa_1,\ldots,a_k\in F and a1ak=1a_1\ldots a_k=1 if ch(F)3{\rm ch}(F)\not=3, and that for any αF{0}\alpha\in F\setminus\{0\} we can write each xFx\in F as a1aka_1\ldots a_k with a1,,akFa_1,\ldots,a_k\in F and a1++ak=αa_1+\ldots+a_k=\alpha. We also prove that for any xFx\in F and k{2,3,}k\in\{2,3,\ldots\} there are a1,,a2kFa_1,\ldots,a_{2k}\in F such that a1++a2k=x=a1a2ka_1+\ldots+a_{2k}=x=a_1\ldots a_{2k}.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1807.01181,
  title  = {On sums and products in a field},
  author = {Guang-Liang Zhou and Zhi-Wei Sun},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1807.01181},
  year   = {2018}
}

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7 pages