A prime $p$ is said to be a Wolstenholme prime if it satisfies the congruence $\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{2p-1}{p-1}\right)\equiv 1(mod{p}^4)$. For such a prime $p$, we establish an expression for $\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{2p-1}{p-1}\right)(mod{p}^8)$ given in terms of the sums $R_i:={\sum }_{k=1}^{p-1}1/k^i$ ($i=1,2,3,4,5,6)$. Further, the expression in this congruence is reduced in terms of the sums $R_i$ ($i=1,3,4,5$). Using this congruence, we prove that for any Wolstenholme prime $p$ we have $$\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{2p-1}{p-1}\right)\equiv 1-2p\sum _{k=1}^{p-1}\frac{1}{k}-2p^2\sum _{k=1}^{p-1}\frac{1}{k^2}(mod{p}^7).$$ Moreover, using a recent result of the author, we prove that a prime $p$ satisfying the above congruence must necessarily be a Wolstenholme prime. Furthermore, applying...

Let ℤ be the set of integers, and let (m,n) be the greatest common divisor of the integers m and n. Let p ≡ 1 (mod 4) be a prime, q ∈ ℤ, 2 ∤ q and p=c²+d²=x²+qy² with c,d,x,y ∈ ℤ and c ≡ 1 (mod 4). Suppose that (c,x+d)=1 or (d,x+c) is a power of 2. In this paper, by using the quartic reciprocity law, we determine $q^{[p/8]}\left(modp\right)$ in terms of c,d,x and y, where [·] is the greatest integer function. Hence we partially solve some conjectures posed in our previous two papers.

Let p be an odd prime and let a be a positive integer. In this paper we investigate the sum $\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{{\sum }_{k=0}^{p^a-1}(h{p}^a-1}{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{k\left)\right(2k}{k)/m^k\left(modp²\right)}}$, where h and m are p-adic integers with m ≢ 0 (mod p). For example, we show that if h ≢ 0 (mod p) and $p^a>3$, then $\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{{\sum }_{k=0}^{p^a-1}(h{p}^a-1}{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{k\left)\right(2k}{{k)(-h/2)}^k\equiv ((1-2h)/\left(p^a\right))(1+h({(4-2/h)}^{p-1}-1))\left(modp²\right)}}$, where (·/·) denotes the Jacobi symbol. Here is another remarkable congruence: If $p^a>3$ then $\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{{\sum }_{k=0}^{p^a-1}(p^a-1}{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{k\left)\right(2k}{{k)(-1)}^k\equiv 3^{p-1}(p^a/3)\left(modp²\right)}}$.

Let ℤ be the set of integers, and let (m,n) be the greatest common divisor of integers m and n. Let p be a prime of the form 4k+1 and p = c²+d² with c,d ∈ ℤ, $d=2^{r}d₀$ and c ≡ d₀ ≡ 1 (mod 4). In the paper we determine ${(b+\surd (b²+4^{\alpha })/2)}^{(p-1)/4)}\left(modp\right)$ for p = x²+(b²+4α)y² (b,x,y ∈ ℤ, 2∤b), and ${(2a+\surd 4a²+1)}^{(p-1)/4}\left(modp\right)$ for p = x²+(4a²+1)y² (a,x,y∈ℤ) on the condition that (c,x+d) = 1 or (d₀,x+c) = 1. As applications we obtain the congruence for $U_{(p-1)/4}\left(modp\right)$ and the criterion for $p|U_{(p-1)/8}$ (if p ≡ 1 (mod 8)), where Uₙ is the Lucas sequence given by U₀ = 0, U₁ = 1 and...

A congruence of Emma Lehmer (1938) for Euler numbers $E_{p-3}$ modulo p in terms of a certain sum of reciprocals of squares of integers was recently extended to prime power moduli by T. Cai et al. We generalize this further to arbitrary composite moduli n and characterize those n for which the sum in question vanishes modulo n (or modulo n/3 when 3|n). Primes for which $E_{p-3}\equiv 0\left(modp\right)$ play an important role, and we present some numerical results.

We address three questions posed by K. Bibak (2020), and generalize some results of K. Bibak, D. N. Lehmer and K. G. Ramanathan on solutions of linear congruences ${\sum }_{i=1}^k{a}_i{x}_i\equiv b(modn)$. In particular, we obtain explicit expressions for the number of solutions, where $x_i$’s are squares modulo $n$. In addition, we obtain expressions for the number of solutions with order restrictions $x_1\ge \cdots \ge x_k$ or with strict order restrictions $x_1>\cdots >x_k$ in some special cases. In these results, the expressions for the number of solutions involve...

Let a,b and c be relatively prime positive integers such that a²+b² = c². We prove that if $b\equiv 0\left(mod{2}^r\right)$ and $b\equiv \pm 2^r\left(moda\right)$ for some non-negative integer r, then the Diophantine equation $a^x+b^y=c^z$ has only the positive solution (x,y,z) = (2,2,2). We also show that the same holds if c ≡ -1 (mod a).

Let $\overline{pp}\left(n\right)$ denote the number of overpartition pairs of n. Bringmann and Lovejoy (2008) proved that for n ≥ 0, $\overline{pp}(3n+2)\equiv 0\left(mod3\right)$. They also proved that there are infinitely many Ramanujan-type congruences modulo every power of odd primes for $\overline{pp}\left(n\right)$. Recently, Chen and Lin (2012) established some Ramanujan-type identities and explicit congruences for $\overline{pp}\left(n\right)$. Furthermore, they also constructed infinite families of congruences for $\overline{pp}\left(n\right)$ modulo 3 and 5, and two congruence relations modulo 9. In this paper, we prove several...

For any odd prime p we obtain q-analogues of van Hamme’s and Rodriguez-Villegas’ supercongruences involving products of three binomial coefficients such as ${\sum }_{k=0}^{(p-1)/2}{\left[\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{2k}{k}\right]}_{q²}^3\left(q^{2k}\right)/\left((-q²;q²){²}_k(-q;q){²}_{2k}²\right)\equiv 0\left(mod\left[p\right]²\right)$ for p≡ 3 (mod 4), ${\sum }_{k=0}^{(p-1)/2}{\left[\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{2k}{k}\right]}_{q³}\left({(q;q³)}_k{(q²;q³)}_k{q}^{3k}\right)\left({(q⁶;q⁶)}_k²\right)\equiv 0\left(mod\left[p\right]²\right)$ for p≡ 2 (mod 3), where $\left[p\right]=1+q+\cdots +q^{p-1}$ and $(a;q)ₙ=(1-a)(1-aq)\cdots (1-a{q}^{n-1})$. We also prove q-analogues of the Sun brothers’ generalizations of the above supercongruences. Our proofs are elementary in nature and use the theory of basic hypergeometric series and combinatorial q-binomial identities including a new q-Clausen type summation formula. ...