English

Proof of a conjecture of Guy on class numbers

Number Theory 2014-12-02 v2

Abstract

It is well known that for any prime p3p\equiv 3 (mod 44), the class numbers of the quadratic fields Q(p)\mathbb{Q}(\sqrt{p}) and Q(p)\mathbb{Q}(\sqrt{-p}), h(p)h(p) and h(p)h(-p) respectively, are odd. It is natural to ask whether there is a formula for h(p)/h(p)h(p)/h(-p) modulo powers of 22. We show the formula h(p)h(p)m(p)h(p) \equiv h(-p) m(p) (mod 1616), where m(p)m(p) is an integer defined using the "negative" continued fraction expansion of p\sqrt{p}. Our result solves a conjecture of Richard Guy.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1407.3261,
  title  = {Proof of a conjecture of Guy on class numbers},
  author = {Lynn Chua and Benjamin Gunby and Soohyun Park and Allen Yuan},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1407.3261},
  year   = {2014}
}

Comments

9 pages; additional background given in introduction concerning $h(p)$ and $h(-p)$ modulo small powers of 2