Related papers: Combinatorial congruences modulo prime powers

In 1950 G. Giuga studied the congruence $\sum_{j=1}^{n-1} j^{n-1} \equiv -1$ (mod $n$) and conjectured that it was only satisfied by prime numbers. In this work we generalize Giuga's ideas considering, for each $k \in \mathbb{N}$, the…

We classify all instances of the condition $a_{p}(f) \equiv x \bmod \lambda$ being related to a congruence on the prime $p$, where $a_{p}(f)$ denotes the $p$th Fourier coefficient of a classical normalised cuspidal eigenform $f$ and…

Let $p$ be an odd prime and $r\geq 1$. Suppose that $\alpha$ is a $p$-adic integer with $\alpha\equiv2a\pmod p$ for some $1\leq a<(p+r)/(2r+1)$. We confirm a conjecture of Sun and prove that…

We give congruences modulo powers of $p \in \{3, 5,7\}$ for the Fourier coefficients of certain modular functions in level $p$ with poles only at 0, answering a question posed by Andersen and the first author and continuing work done by the…

Lucas' theorem describes how to reduce a binomial coefficient $\binom{a}{b}$ modulo $p$ by breaking off the least significant digits of $a$ and $b$ in base $p$. We characterize the pairs of these digits for which Lucas' theorem holds modulo…

In this work, we prove that many Ap\'ery-like sequences arising from modular forms satisfy the Lucas congruences modulo any prime. As an implication, we completely affirm four conjectural Lucas congruences that were recently posed by S.…

By recent work of the author, Wilson's theorem as well as the Wilson quotient can be described by supercongruences of power sums of Fermat quotients modulo every higher prime power. We translate these congruences into congruences of power…

We consider absolutely irreducible polynomials $f \in Z[x,y]$ with $\deg_x(f)=m$, $\deg_y(f)=n$ and height $H$. We show that for any prime $p$ with $p>c_{mn} H^{2mn+n-1}$ the reduction $f \bmod p$ is also absolutely irreducible. Furthermore…

Let $p$ be any odd prime number. Let $k$ be any positive integer such that $2\leq k\leq [\frac{p+1}3]+1$. Let $S = (a_1,a_2,...,a_{2p-k})$ be any sequence in ${\Bbb Z}_p$ such that there is no subsequence of length $p$ of $S$ whose sum is…

In the course of the proof of the irrationality of zeta(2) R. Apery introduced numbers b_n = \sum_{k=0}^n {n \choose k}^2{n+k \choose k}. Stienstra and Beukers showed that for the prime p > 3 Apery numbers satisfy congruence b((p-1)/2) =…

Let $(F_n)_{n \geq 1}$ be the sequence of Fibonacci numbers. For all integers $a$ and $b \geq 1$ with $\gcd(a, b) = 1$, let $[a^{-1} \!\bmod b]$ be the multiplicative inverse of $a$ modulo $b$, which we pick in the usual set of…

For every natural number $n$ and a fixed prime $p$, we prove a new congruence for the orbifold Euler characteristic of a group. The $p$-adic limit of these congruences as $n$ tends to infinity recovers the Brown-Quillen congruence. We apply…

For a positive integer $n$ let $H_n=\sum_{k=1}^{n}1/k$ be the $n$th harmonic number. In this note we prove that for any prime $p\ge 7$, $$ \sum_{k=1}^{p-1}\frac{H_k^2}{k^2} \equiv4/5pB_{p-5}\pmod{p^2}, $$ which confirms the conjecture…

Let $p$ be an odd prime. It is well known that $F_{p-(\frac p5)}\equiv 0\pmod{p}$, where $\{F_n\}_{n\ge0}$ is the Fibonacci sequence and $(-)$ is the Jacobi symbol. In this paper we show that if $p\not=5$ then we may determine $F_{p-(\frac…

We estimate character sums with n!, on average, and individually. These bounds are used to derive new results about various congruences modulo a prime p and obtain new information about the spacings between quadratic nonresidues modulo p.…

For a prime $p$ and an integer $a \in \Z$ we obtain nontrivial upper bounds on the number of solutions to the congruence $x^x \equiv a \pmod p$, $1 \le x \le p-1$. We use these estimates to estimate the number of solutions to the congruence…

In this paper, we confirm several conjectures posed by Sun recently; for example, we prove that for any odd prime $p$ we have $$ \sum_{k=0}^{p-1}A_k\equiv\begin{cases}4x^2-2p\pmod{p^2}\quad&\text{if $p=x^2+2y^2\ (x,y\in\mathbb{Z})$},\\…

In this paper, we prove two supercongruences by the Wilf-Zeilberger method. One of them is, for any prime $p>3$, \begin{align*} \sum_{n=0}^{(p-1)/2}\frac{3n+1}{(-8)^n}\binom{2n}n^3\equiv…

Let $s$ be a fixed positive integer constant, $\varepsilon$ be a fixed small positive number. Then, provided that a prime $p$ is large enough, we prove that for any set $\{{\mathcal M}\subseteq \mathbb F_p^*$ of size $|{\mathcal M}|=…

The arithmetic properties of the ordinary partition function $p(n)$ have been the topic of intensive study for the past century. Ramanujan proved that there are linear congruences of the form $p(\ell n+\beta)\equiv 0\pmod\ell$ for the…