For every integer , let denote the set of all binary -tuples of zeroes and ones, and split into equivalence classes by letting two -tuples be equivalent if one is obtained from the other by a cyclic permutation of the entries. Determine the integers for which splits into an odd number of equivalence classes.
Solution
Only splits into an odd number of equivalence classes, namely, three: , and . If , then always splits into an even number of classes, as we are presently going to show.
Call two -tuples of conjugate if one is obtained from the other by replacing its zeroes by ones and its ones by zeroes. With each class in we may associate the class of conjugate -tuples. Thus, if there are no self-conjugate classes, the number of classes is even. This is clearly the case if is odd, for the -tuples in a self-conjugate class must have the same number of zeroes and ones, so the total number of entries is even.
Write , where and are both non-negative integers, and is odd, and induct on . The base case, , is clear by the preceding, so let .
Let be the number of -element classes in . Clearly, if , then divides , so .
If divides , then an -tuple belonging to a -element class in can be obtained only by iterating an -tuple in , so the first sum in the last expression above is .
Consequently, . Notice that is positive, unless or , and , to infer that, with these exceptions, is even. Since is odd, so are all its divisors, and it follows that is even, showing that the total number of -element classes in is even, whenever is divisible by .
If is not divisible by , then the total number of -element classes in is the same as the total number of classes in which is even by the induction hypothesis, save when . This corresponds to an exceptional case above; the other exceptional case is , when the number of classes is clearly three.
Finally, the case is dealt with by explicit construction of the (six) classes splits into: There are two singleton classes, represented by and , respectively; there is only one doubleton class, represented by ; and there are three 4-element classes, represented by , and , respectively.