differences between powers of a primitive root一种原始的力量之间的差别.pdfVIP

IJMMS 29:6 (2002) 325–331 PII. S0161171202007573 © Hindawi Publishing Corp. DIFFERENCES BETWEEN POWERS OF A PRIMITIVE ROOT MARIAN VÂJÂITU and ALEXANDRU ZAHARESCU Received 14 May 2001 We study the set of differences {gx −gy (mod p) : 1 ≤ x, y ≤ N } where p is a large prime number, g is a primitive root (mod p), and p2/3 N p. 2000 Mathematics Subject Classification: 11A07. 1. Introduction. Let p be a large prime number and g a primitive root (mod p). The distribution of powers gn (mod p), 1 ≤ n ≤ N , for a given integer N p has been investigated in [ 1, 2, 4]. In this paper, we use techniques from [4] to study the set of differences x −gy (mod p) : 1 ≤ x, y ≤ N . (1.1) A := g A natural question, attributed to Andrew Odlyzko, asks for which values of N can we be sure that any residue h(mod p) belongs to A? He conjectured that one can take N to be as small as p1/2+ , for any fixed 0 and p large enough in terms of . If true, this would be essentially best possible since A has at most N 2 elements. For any residue a(mod p), denote ν(N,a) = # 1 ≤ x, y ≤ N : gx −gy ≡ a(mod p). (1.2) If a ≡ 0(mod p) we have the diagonal solutions x = y , thus ν(N, 0) = N . For a ≡ 0(mod p) it is proved in [4, Theorem 2] that 2 N 2 ν(N,a) = +O p log p . (1.3) p It follows that we can take N = c0 p3/4 log p in Odlyzko’s problem, for some absolute constant c0 . The exponent 3/4 i