English

A congruence involving alternating harmonic sums modulo $p^{\alpha}q^{\beta}$

Number Theory 2015-03-12 v1

Abstract

In 2014, Wang and Cai established the following harmonic congruence for any odd prime pp and positive integer rr, \begin{equation*} \sum\limits_{i+j+k=p^{r}\atop{i,j,k\in \mathcal{P}_{p}}}\frac{1}{ijk}\equiv-2p^{r-1}B_{p-3} ~(\bmod ~ p^{r}), \end{equation*} where Pn\mathcal{P}_{n} denote the set of positive integers which are prime to nn. In this note, we obtain the congruences for distinct odd primes p, qp,~q and positive integers α, β\alpha,~\beta, \begin{equation*} \sum\limits_{i+j+k=p^{\alpha}q^{\beta}\atop{i,j,k\in\mathcal{P}_{pq}\atop{i\equiv j\equiv k\equiv 1\pmod{2}}}}\frac{1}{ijk}\equiv\frac{7}{8}(2-q)(1-\frac{1}{q^{3}})p^{\alpha-1}q^{\beta-1}B_{p-3}\pmod{p^{\alpha}} \end{equation*} and \begin{equation*} \sum\limits_{i+j+k=p^{\alpha}q^{\beta}\atop{i,j,k\in \mathcal{P}_{pq}}}\frac{(-1)^{i}}{ijk} \equiv \frac{1}{2}(q-2)(1-\frac{1}{q^{3}})p^{\alpha-1}q^{\beta-1}B_{p-3}\pmod{p^{\alpha}}. \end{equation*} Finally, we raise a conjecture that for n>1n>1 and odd prime power pαnp^{\alpha}||n, α1\alpha\geq1, \begin{eqnarray} \nonumber \sum\limits_{i+j+k=n\atop{i,j,k\in\mathcal{P}_{n}}}\frac{(-1)^{i}}{ijk} \equiv \prod\limits_{q|n\atop{q\neq p}}(1-\frac{2}{q})(1-\frac{1}{q^{3}})\frac{n}{2p}B_{p-3}\pmod{p^{\alpha}} \end{eqnarray} and \begin{eqnarray} \nonumber \sum\limits_{i+j+k=n\atop{i,j,k\in\mathcal{P}_{n}\atop{i\equiv j\equiv k\equiv 1\pmod{2}}}}\frac{1}{ijk} \equiv \prod\limits_{q|n\atop{q\neq p}}(1-\frac{2}{q})(1-\frac{1}{q^{3}})(-\frac{7n}{8p})B_{p-3}\pmod{p^{\alpha}}. \end{eqnarray}

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1503.03154,
  title  = {A congruence involving alternating harmonic sums modulo $p^{\alpha}q^{\beta}$},
  author = {Zhongyan Shen and Tianxin Cai},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1503.03154},
  year   = {2015}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-22T08:49:31.757Z