Related papers: Prime Power Residues and Blocking Sets

Let $q$ be an odd prime and $k$ be a natural number. We show that a finite subset of integers $S$ that does not contain any perfect $q^{th}$ power, contains a $q^{th}$ power residue modulo almost every natural numbers $N$ with at most $k$…

Let $q$ be an odd prime and $B = \{b_{j}\}_{j=1}^{l}$ be a finite set of nonzero integers that does not contain a perfect $q^{th}$ power. We show that $B$ has a $q^{th}$ power modulo every prime $p \neq q$ and not dividing $\prod_{b\in B}…

Let $q$ be a prime. We give an elementary proof of the fact that for any $k\in\mathbb{N}$, the proportion of $k$-element subsets of $\mathbb{Z}$ that contain a $q^{th}$ power modulo almost every prime, is zero. This result holds regardless…

Blocking semiovals and the determination of their (minimum) sizes constitute one of the central research topics in finite projective geometry. In this article we introduce the concept of blocking set with the $r_\infty$-property in a finite…

In this note we construct a series of small subsets containing a non-d-th power element in a finite field by applying certain bounds on incomplete character sums. Precisely, let $h=\lfloor q^{\delta}\rfloor>1$ and $d\mid q^h-1$. Let $r$ be…

In a 2022, Bartoli, Cossidente, Marino, and Pavese proved that in the projective space ${\rm PG}(3,q^3)$, one can find three $\mathbb F_q$-subgeometries such that the union of their point sets is a strong blocking set. This proves the…

Let $n$ be a positive integer. Denote by $\mathrm{PG}(n,q)$ the $n$-dimensional projective space over the finite field $\mathbb{F}_q$ of order $q$. A blocking set in $\mathrm{PG}(n,q)$ is a set of points that has non-empty intersection with…

In this note, we provide some results concerning the structure of a set $A\subseteq \mathbb{Z}_n^{\times}$, which has non-empty subset sums equally distributed modulo $n$. Here, $\mathbb{Z}_n^{\times}$ denotes the set which contains all the…

Let $q=p^\alpha$ be a fixed prime power, $k\geq 2$ be an integer. We give a new upper bound for the size of $k$-wise $q$-modular $L$-avoiding $L$-intersecting set systems, where $L$ is any proper subset of $\{0, \ldots , q-1\}$. Our proof…

We fix a non-zero integer $a$ and consider arithmetic progressions $a \bmod q$, with $q$ varying over a given range. We show that for certain specific values of $a$, the arithmetic progressions $a \bmod q$ contain, on average, significantly…

Let $q$ be a prime. We classify the odd primes $p\neq q$ such that the equation $x^2\equiv q\pmod{p}$ has a solution, concretely, we find a subgroup $\mathbb{L}_{4q}$ of the multiplicative group $\mathbb{U}_{4q}$ of integers relatively…

We study number theoretic properties of the map $x \mapsto x^{x} \mod{p}$, where $x \in \{1,2,\ldots,p-1\}$, and improve on some recent upper bounds, due to Kurlberg, Luca, and Shparlinski, on the number of primes $p < N$ for which the map…

A strong blocking set in a finite projective space is a set of points that intersects each hyperplane in a spanning set. We provide a new graph theoretic construction of such sets: combining constant-degree expanders with asymptotically…

For a given subset $A\subseteq \mathbb F_q^*$, we study the problem of finding a large packing set $B$ of $A$, that is, a set $B \subseteq \mathbb F_q^*$ such that $|AB|=|A||B|$. We prove the existence of such a $B$ of size $|B|\ge…

A small minimal k-blocking set B in PG(n, q), q = pt, p prime, is a set of less than 3(qk + 1)/2 points in PG(n, q), such that every (n - k)-dimensional space contains at least one point of B and such that no proper subset of B satisfies…

For positive integers $q$, Dirichlet's theorem states that there are infinitely many primes in each reduced residue class modulo $q$. A stronger form of the theorem states that the primes are equidistributed among the $\varphi(q)$ reduced…

For any $\epsilon>0$, there exists $q_0(\epsilon)$ such for any $q\ge q_0(\epsilon)$ and any invertible residue class $a$ modulo $q$, there exists a natural number that is congruent to $a$ modulo $q$ and that is the product of exactly three…

Let G be a finite group and let k be a positive integer. We examine the relationship between structural properties of G and the number of elements of G that are not kth powers in G. In particular, we examine a bound on |G| given by Lucido…

By some extremely simple arguments, we point out the following: (i) If n is the least positive k-th power non-residue modulo a positive integer m, then the greatest number of consecutive k-th power residues mod m is smaller than m/n. (ii)…

Let $q=p^s$ be a prime power, $F$ a field containing a root of unity of order $q$, and $G_F$ its absolute Galois group. We determine a new canonical quotient $\mathrm{Gal}(F_{(3)}/F)$ of $G_F$ which encodes the full mod-$q$ cohomology ring…