English

Variations on a theme of Schinzel and W\'ojcik

Number Theory 2021-02-02 v1

Abstract

Schinzel and W\'ojcik have shown that if α,β\alpha, \beta are rational numbers not 00 or ±1\pm 1, then ordp(α)=ordp(β)\mathrm{ord}_p(\alpha)=\mathrm{ord}_p(\beta) for infinitely many primes pp, where ordp()\mathrm{ord}_p(\cdot) denotes the order in Fp×\mathbb{F}_p^{\times}. We begin by asking: When are there infinitely many primes pp with ordp(α)>ordp(β)\mathrm{ord}_p(\alpha) > \mathrm{ord}_p(\beta)? We write down several families of pairs α,β\alpha,\beta for which we can prove this to be the case. In particular, we show this happens for "100\%" of pairs A,2A,2, as AA runs through the positive integers. We end on a different note, proving a version of Schinzel and W\'{o}jcik's theorem for the integers of an imaginary quadratic field KK: If α,βOK\alpha, \beta \in \mathcal{O}_K are nonzero and neither is a root of unity, then there are infinitely many maximal ideals PP of OK\mathcal{O}_K for which ordP(α)=ordP(β)\mathrm{ord}_P(\alpha) = \mathrm{ord}_P(\beta).

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2102.00370,
  title  = {Variations on a theme of Schinzel and W\'ojcik},
  author = {Matthew Just and Paul Pollack},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2102.00370},
  year   = {2021}
}

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13 pages