English

Proof of some conjectures involving quadratic residues

Number Theory 2020-03-13 v3

Abstract

We confirm several conjectures of Sun involving quadratic residues modulo odd primes. For any prime p1(mod4)p\equiv 1\pmod 4 and integer a≢0(modp)a\not\equiv0\pmod p, we prove that \begin{align*}&(-1)^{|\{1\le k<\frac p4:\ (\frac kp)=-1\}|}\prod_{1\le j<k\le(p-1)/2}(e^{2\pi iaj^2/p}+e^{2\pi iak^2/p}) \\=&\begin{cases}1&\text{if}\ p\equiv1\pmod 8,\\\left(\frac ap\right)\varepsilon_p^{-(\frac ap)h(p)}&\text{if}\ p\equiv5\pmod8,\end{cases} \end{align*} and that \begin{align*}&\left|\left\{(j,k):\ 1\le j<k\le\frac{p-1}2\ \&\ \{aj^2\}_p>\{ak^2\}_p\right\}\right| \\&+\left|\left\{(j,k):\ 1\le j<k\le\frac{p-1}2\ \&\ \{ak^2-aj^2\}_p>\frac p2\right\}\right| \\\equiv&\left|\left\{1\le k<\frac p4:\ \left(\frac kp\right)=\left(\frac ap\right)\right\}\right|\pmod2. \end{align*} where (ap)(\frac{a}p) is the Legendre symbol, εp\varepsilon_p and h(p)h(p) are the fundamental unit and the class number of the real quadratic field Q(p)\mathbb Q(\sqrt p) respectively, and {x}p\{x\}_p is the least nonnegative residue of an integer xx modulo pp. Also, for any prime p3(mod4)p\equiv3\pmod4 and δ=1,2\delta=1,2, we determine (1){(j,k): 1j<k(p1)/2 and {δTj}p>{δTk}p},(-1)^{\left|\left\{(j,k): \ 1\le j<k\le(p-1)/2\ \text{and}\ \{\delta T_j\}_p>\{\delta T_k\}_p\right\}\right|}, where TmT_m denotes the triangular number m(m+1)/2m(m+1)/2.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1907.12981,
  title  = {Proof of some conjectures involving quadratic residues},
  author = {Fedor Petrov and Zhi-Wei Sun},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1907.12981},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

10 pages. Accepted version for publication in Electron. Res. Arch