Thursday, 7 June 2018

elementary number theory - Simple Property of GCD and Modular Arithmetic



I'm stuck on proving a rather elementary property, as I'm not really sure how to start off the approach. Suppose ga1 mod m and gb1 mod m. Does this imply that ggcd mod m?



Here's my attempt:
By definition, we know that m\mid g^a-1 and m|g^b-1, so there exists some x,y\in\mathbb{Z} such that mx=g^a-1 and my=g^b-1. Then
\begin{align} m(x+y)&=g^{\gcd(a,b)}g^{\frac{a}{\gcd(a,b)}}+g^{\gcd(a,b)}g^{\frac{b}{\gcd(a,b)}}-2\\ &=g^{\gcd(a,b)}\Big(g^{\frac{a}{\gcd(a,b)}}+g^{\frac{b}{\gcd(a,b)}}\Big)-2. \end{align}

However, I feel like this approach is only making the problem more complicated than it actually is, as the terms become harder and harder to manipulate to get our desired result mz=g^{\gcd(a,b)}-1 for some z\in\mathbb{Z}.



Any help would be appreciated!


Answer



We have by the extended Euclidean algorithm that there exists x, y \in \Bbb{Z} such that ax + by = gcd(a,b). So
g^{gcd(a,b)} = g^{ax+by} = g^{ax} \cdot g^{by} = (g^a)^x \cdot (g^b)^y \equiv 1^x\cdot 1^y = 1 \pmod{m}.


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