Products of quadratic residues and related identities


Abstract in English

In this paper we study products of quadratic residues modulo odd primes and prove some identities involving quadratic residues. For instance, let $p$ be an odd prime. We prove that if $pequiv5pmod8$, then $$prod_{0<x<p/2,(frac{x}{p})=1}xequiv(-1)^{1+r}pmod p,$$ where $(frac{cdot}{p})$ is the Legendre symbol and $r$ is the number of $4$-th power residues modulo $p$ in the interval $(0,p/2)$. Our work involves class number formula, quartic Gauss sums, Stickelbergers congruence and values of Dirichlet L-series at negative integers.

Download