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A NOTE ON GENERALISED WALL–SUN–SUN PRIMES

Part of: Elementary number theory Sequences and sets

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2023

JOSHUA HARRINGTON Open the ORCID record for JOSHUA HARRINGTON [Opens in a new window]  and
LENNY JONES Open the ORCID record for LENNY JONES [Opens in a new window]
JOSHUA HARRINGTON
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematics, Cedar Crest College, Allentown, Pennsylvania, USA e-mail: Joshua.Harrington@cedarcrest.edu
LENNY JONES*
Affiliation:
Professor Emeritus of Mathematics, Department of Mathematics, Shippensburg University, Shippensburg, PA 17257, USA
*
e-mail: doctorlennyjones@gmail.com
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Abstract

Let a and b be positive integers and let $\{U_n\}_{n\ge 0}$ be the Lucas sequence of the first kind defined by

$$ \begin{align*}U_0=0,\quad U_1=1\quad \mbox{and} \quad U_n=aU_{n-1}+bU_{n-2} \quad \mbox{for }n\ge 2.\end{align*} $$

We define an $(a,b)$-Wall–Sun–Sun prime to be a prime p such that $\gcd (p,b)=1$ and $\pi (p^2)=\pi (p),$ where $\pi (p):=\pi _{(a,b)}(p)$ is the length of the period of $\{U_n\}_{n\ge 0}$ modulo p. When $(a,b)=(1,1)$, such primes are known in the literature simply as Wall–Sun–Sun primes. In this note, we provide necessary and sufficient conditions such that a prime p dividing $a^2+4b$ is an $(a,b)$-Wall–Sun–Sun prime.

Keywords

Wall–Sun–Sun primeFibonacci–Wieferich primeLucas sequence

MSC classification

Primary: 11B39: Fibonacci and Lucas numbers and polynomials and generalizations
Secondary: 11A41: Primes
Type
Research Article
Information
Bulletin of the Australian Mathematical Society , Volume 108 , Issue 3 , December 2023 , pp. 373 - 378
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Australian Mathematical Publishing Association Inc.

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