English

A primality criterion based on a Lucas' congruence

Number Theory 2018-04-10 v1

Abstract

Let pp be a prime. In 1878 \'{E}. Lucas proved that the congruence (p1k)(1)k(modp) {p-1\choose k}\equiv (-1)^k\pmod{p} holds for any nonnegative integer k{0,1,,p1}k\in\{0,1,\ldots,p-1\}. The converse statement was given in Problem 1494 of {\it Mathematics Magazine} proposed in 1997 by E. Deutsch and I.M. Gessel. In this note we generalize this converse assertion by the following result: If n>1n>1 and q>1q>1 are integers such that (n1k)(1)k(modq) {n-1\choose k}\equiv (-1)^k \pmod{q} for every integer k{0,1,,n1}k\in\{0,1,\ldots, n-1\}, then qq is a prime and nn is a power of qq.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1407.7894,
  title  = {A primality criterion based on a Lucas' congruence},
  author = {Romeo Mestrovic},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1407.7894},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

6 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-22T05:16:12.413Z