Given a positive odd integer , show that the arithmetic mean of the fractional parts , , is the same for infinitely many primes .
Solutions — 2
Solution 1
Notice that , where is the remainder leaves upon division by . Clearly, the are quadratic residues modulo .
If is prime, and and are relatively prime, then the , , are pairwise distinct, since the , , are pairwise distinct modulo , by Fermat's little theorem. In this case, the , , form the set of all quadratic residues modulo in the range through .
If, in addition, is congruent to , then is a quadratic residue modulo , and the assignment , , defines a permutation of . In this case, , so , and the arithmetic mean in question is .
Finally, since is odd, infinitely many primes congruent to are also congruent to , by Dirichlet's theorem on arithmetic sequences of integers; for such a prime , the numbers and are clearly relatively prime. This completes the proof.
Solution 2
It is sufficient to show that for every prime congruent to .
Let be a prime congruent to , let , let , , be the remainder leaves upon division by , and let
It is easily seen that the are pairwise distinct, so they form the set of all quadratic residues modulo . Since is congruent to , is a quadratic residue modulo , so there is a bijection such that for all in ; in particular, .
Since is odd, it follows that for all in , so if is the remainder leaves upon division by , then is the remainder leaves upon division by . Consequently,