English

Primitive-Root Ratio over Prime Fields: A Shifted-Prime Distribution of Hausdorff Dimension Zero and Implications for PRIM-LWE

Cryptography and Security 2026-05-08 v5 Number Theory

Abstract

For a prime pp, let c(p)c(p) denote the limiting fraction of n×nn\times n matrices over Fp\mathbb{F}_p whose determinant is a primitive root modulo pp. The quantity c(p)c(p) is a natural multiplicative deformation of the totient ratio φ(p1)/(p1)\varphi(p-1)/(p-1) and inherits its distributional behaviour over the primes. Existence and continuity of the limiting law follow from the shifted-prime Erd\H{o}s--Wintner--Hildebrand framework. We prove the following new results: unconditionally, infpc(p)=0\inf_p c(p)=0 and the sharp order is minpxc(p)1/loglogx\min_{p\le x}c(p)\asymp 1/\log\log x; the reciprocal satisfies lim supp,p prime1/(c(p)loglogp)=eγ\limsup_{p\to\infty, \, p\text{ prime}} 1/(c(p)\log\log p)=e^{\gamma}, and no smaller constant suffices. We give a complete proof, combining an adaptation of Erd\H{o}s's argument with the Jessen--Wintner pure-type dichotomy, that the limiting distribution is purely singular, and strengthen this to dimH(μG)=0\dim_H(\mu_G)=0, i.e. the limiting measure is carried by a Borel set of Hausdorff dimension zero. The distribution has full topological support [0,12][0,\tfrac12] and admits a Bernoulli-product representation indexed by the odd primes. The moments are given by convergent Euler products, and the Mellin transform E[Xs]\mathbb{E}[X^s] extends to an entire function of ss, non-vanishing on Re(s)>0\operatorname{Re}(s)>0. Near the right endpoint, 1G(12ε)κ/log(1/ε)1-G(\tfrac12-\varepsilon)\sim\kappa/\log(1/\varepsilon) with an explicit constant κ\kappa. The quantity 1/c(p)1/c(p) equals the dimension-uniform expected rejection-sampling overhead in the reduction from learning with errors (LWE) to PRIM-LWE in lattice-based cryptography. The explicit bounds yield concrete overhead estimates for all primes appearing in current NIST post-quantum standards and representative NTT-friendly moduli.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2603.11196,
  title  = {Primitive-Root Ratio over Prime Fields: A Shifted-Prime Distribution of Hausdorff Dimension Zero and Implications for PRIM-LWE},
  author = {Vipin Singh Sehrawat},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.11196},
  year   = {2026}
}