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Mathematics of Computation
Journal of the American Mathematical Society
ISSN 1088-6842(e) ISSN 0025-5718(p)
     

On the $p$-divisibility of Fermat quotients

Author(s): R. Ernvall; T. Metsänkylä.
Journal: Math. Comp. 66 (1997), 1353-1365.
MSC (1991): Primary 11A15, 11Y70; Secondary 11D41, 11R18
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Abstract: The authors carried out a numerical search for Fermat quotients $Q_{a} = (a^{p-1}-1)/p$ vanishing mod $p$, for $1 \le a \le p-1$, up to $p < 10^{6}$. This article reports on the results and surveys the associated theoretical properties of $Q_{a}$. The approach of fixing the prime $p$ rather than the base $a$ leads to some aspects of the theory apparently not published before.


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Additional Information:

R. Ernvall
Affiliation: Forssa Institute of Technology, Saksankatu 46, FIN-30100 Forssa, Finland

T. Metsänkylä
Affiliation: Department of Mathematics, University of Turku, FIN-20014 Turku, Finland
Email: taumets@sara.cc.utu.fi

DOI: 10.1090/S0025-5718-97-00843-0
PII: S 0025-5718(97)00843-0
Keywords: Fermat quotients, computation, Fermat's equation, Catalan's equation, cyclotomic fields
Received by editor(s): March 4, 1996
Received by editor(s) in revised form: May 22, 1996
Copyright of article: Copyright 1997, American Mathematical Society


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