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Class numbers of indefinite binary quadratic forms and the residual indices of integers modulo $p$
O. M. Fomenko St. Petersburg Department of V. A. Steklov Institute of Mathematics, Russian Academy of Sciences
Abstract:
Let
$h(d)$ be the class number of properly equivalent primitive binary quadratic forms
$ax^2+bxy+cy^2$ with discriminant
$d=b^2-4ac$. The behavior of
$h(5p^2)$, where
$p$ runs over primes, is studied. It is easy to show that there are few discriminants of the form
$5p^2$ with large class numbers. In fact, one has the estimate
$$
\#\bigl\{p\le x\mid h(5p^2)>x^{1-\delta}\bigr\}\ll x^{2\delta},
$$
where
$\delta$ is an arbitrary constant number in
$(0;1/2)$.
Assume that
$\alpha(x)$ is a positive function monotonically increasing for
$x\to\infty$ and
$\alpha(x)\to\infty$. If
$$
\alpha(x)\le(\log x)(\log\log x)^{-3},
$$
then (assuming the validity of the extended Riemann hypothesis for certain Dedekind zeta-functions) it is proved
$$
\#\biggl\{p\le x\biggm|\biggl(\frac5p\biggr)=1,\ h(5p^2)>\alpha(x)\biggr\}\asymp\frac{\pi(x)}{\alpha(x)}.
$$
It is also proved that for an infinite set of
$p$ with
$\bigl(\frac5p\bigr)=1$ one has the inequality
$$
h(5p^2)\ge\frac{\log\log p}{\log_kp},
$$
where
$\log_kp$ is the
$k$-fold iterated logarithm (
$k$ is an arbitrary integer,
$k\ge3$). Results on mean values of
$h(5p^2)$ are also obtained. Similar facts are true for the residual indices of an integer
$a\ge2$ modulo
$p$:
$$
r(a,p)=\frac{p-1}{o(a,p)},
$$
where
$o(a,p)$ is the order of
$a$ modulo
$p$.
UDC:
511.466+517.863
Received: 26.06.2002