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KöMaL problem A, 2018

Number theory Difficulty 6.0 National Olympiad Find the answer Hungary

For an arbitrary positive integer mm, not divisible by 33, consider the permutation x↦3x(modm)x\mapsto 3x\pmod{m} on the set {1,2,…,m−1}\{1,2,\ldots,m-1\}. This permutation can be decomposed into disjoint cycles; for instance, for m=10m=10 the cycles are (1↦3↦9↦7↦1)(1\mapsto3\mapsto9\mapsto7\mapsto1), (2↦6↦8↦4↦2)(2\mapsto6\mapsto8\mapsto4\mapsto2) and (5↦5)(5\mapsto5). For which integers mm is the number of cycles odd?

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