English

Some determinants involving quadratic residues modulo primes

Number Theory 2024-07-12 v5

Abstract

In this paper we evaluate several determinants involving quadratic residues modulo primes. For example, for any prime p>3p>3 with p3(mod4)p\equiv3\pmod4 and a,bZa,b\in\mathbb Z with pabp\nmid ab, we prove that det[1+tanπaj2+bk2p]1j,kp12={2(p1)/2p(p3)/4if (abp)=1,p(p3)/4if (abp)=1,\det\left[ 1+\tan\pi\frac{aj^2+bk^2}p \right]_{1\le j,k \le \frac{p-1}2} = \begin{cases}-2^{(p-1)/2}p^{(p-3)/4}&\text{if}\ (\frac{ab}p)=1, \\p^{(p-3)/4}&\text{if}\ (\frac{ab}p)=-1, \end{cases} where (p)(\frac{\cdot}p) denotes the Legendre symbol. We also pose some conjectures for further research.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2401.14301,
  title  = {Some determinants involving quadratic residues modulo primes},
  author = {Zhi-Wei Sun},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2401.14301},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

25 pages. Mainly add Theorem 1.1(i) and its proof

R2 v1 2026-06-28T14:27:16.795Z