English

Some permutations over ${\mathbb F}_p$ concerning primitive roots

Number Theory 2018-10-30 v1

Abstract

Let pp be an odd prime and let Fp{\mathbb F}_p denote the finite field with pp elements. Suppose that gg is a primitive root of Fp{\mathbb F}_p. Define the permutation τg:HpHp\tau_g:\,{\mathcal H}_p\to{\mathcal H}_p by τg(b):={gb,if gbHp,gb,if gb∉Hp, \tau_g(b):=\begin{cases} g^b,&\text{if }g^b\in{\mathcal H}_p,\\ -g^b,&\text{if }g^b\not\in{\mathcal H}_p,\\ \end{cases} for each bHpb\in{\mathcal H}_p, where Hp={1,2,,(p1)/2}{\mathcal H}_p=\{1,2,\ldots,(p-1)/2\} is viewed as a subset of Fp{\mathbb F}_p. In this paper, we investigate the sign of τg\tau_g. For example, if p5(mod8)p\equiv 5\pmod{8}, then (1)τg=(1)14(h(4p)+2) (-1)^{|\tau_g|}=(-1)^{\frac{1}{4}(h(-4p)+2)} for every primitive root gg, where h(4p)h(-4p) is the class number of the imaginary quadratic field Q(4p){\mathbb Q}(\sqrt{-4p}).

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1810.11642,
  title  = {Some permutations over ${\mathbb F}_p$ concerning primitive roots},
  author = {Li-Yuan Wang and Hao Pan},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1810.11642},
  year   = {2018}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-23T04:54:30.732Z