Thursday, 15 September 2016

elementary number theory - How to prove that g or g+p is a primitive root modulo pa for a primitive root g modulo p?



I wish to prove the following:





If p is an odd prime and g is a primitive root modulo p, then either g or g+p is a primitive root modulo every power of p.




The only reference I can find to this is on page 26 of "A Course in Computational Algebraic Number Theory" by Henri Cohen (https://books.google.no/books?id=hXGr-9l1DXcC&pg=PP1&dq=A+Course+in+Computational+Algebraic+Number+Theory&ei=98TxSsRYjeSTBP7p6egL&redir_esc=y#v=snippet&q=primitive&f=false)



I'm struggling to understand the dense proof presented there. I understand all the steps and statements, with the exception of the last part of the following:





For any m we have mpm(modp), hence it follows that for every prime l dividing p-1, g^{p^{a-1}(p-1)/l}\equiv g^{(p-1)/l}\not\equiv 1\pmod{p}. So for g to be a primitive root, we need only that g^{p^{a-2}(p-1)}\not\equiv 1\pmod{p^a}.




Here is my understanding: m^p\equiv m\pmod{p} is just Fermat's little theorem, and by induction it also follows that m^{p^k}\equiv m\pmod{p}. By inserting a-1 for k and g^{(p-1)/l} for m, we obtain g^{p^{a-1}(p-1)/l}\equiv g^{(p-1)/l}\pmod{p}. Further, since g is a primitive root modulo p, g^k\not\equiv 1\pmod{p} holds for all $k, in particular for k=(p-1)/l. Going from there to say that it is sufficient that g^{p^{a-2}(p-1)}\not\equiv 1\pmod{p^a} for g to be a primitive root modulo p^a, is beyond me. Could anybody please help me understand this step?



The rest of the proof after that point is pretty straightforward, although it omits a lot of details.


Answer



The order of g mod p^a has to divide p^{a-1}(p-1) by Fermat-Euler, and you have shown you can't take out factors from p-1. So the order must be p^j(p-1) for some 0\leq j\leq a-1. Hence it suffices to impose the constraint g^{p^{a-2}(p-1)}\not\equiv 1\pmod{p^a}.


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