A SIMPLE PROOF OF CARMICHAELfS THEOREMON PRIMITIVE DIVISORSMinora Yabuta46-35 Senriokanaka Suita-sl, Osaka 565-0812, Japan(Submitted September 1999-Final Revision March 2000)1. INTRODUCTIONFor arbitrary positive integer «, numbers of the form Dn = {an-pn)l{a-fJ) are called theLucas numbers, where a and fi are distinct roots of the polynomial f(z) = z2 -Lz + M, and Land Mare integers that are nonzero. The Lucas sequence (D): Dh D2, D3,... is called real whena and ft are real. Throughout this paper, we assume that L and M are coprime. Each Dn is aninteger. A prime p is called a primitive divisor of Dn ifp divides Dn but does not divide Dm for0Durst [4] observed, in the study of primitive divisors, it suffices to take L>0. Therefore, weassume L > 0 in this paper.In 1913, Carmichael [2] established the following.Theorem 1 (Carmichael): If a and /} are real and n & 1,2,6, then Dn contains at least one primitivedivisor except when « = 12, L = M = -l,In 1974, Schinzel [6] proved that if the roots off are complex and their quotient is not a rootof unity and if n is sufficiently large then the w* term in the associated Lucas sequence has aprimitive divisor. In 1976, Stewart [7] proved that if n - 5 or n > 6 there are only finitely manyLucas sequences that do not have a primitive divisor, and they may be determined. In 1995,Voutier [8] determined all the exceptional Lucas sequences with n at most 30. Finally, Bilu,Hanrot, and Voutier [1] have recently shown that there are no other exceptional sequences thatdo not have a primitive divisor for the w* term with n larger than 30.The aim of this paper is to give an elementary and simple proof of Theorem 1. To prove thatTheorem 1 istrue for all real Lucas sequences, it is sufficient to discuss the two special sequences,namely, the Fibonacci sequence and the so-called Fermat sequence.2* A SUFFICIENT CONDITION THAT Dn HAS A PRIMITIVE DIVISORLet n > 1 be an integer. Following Ward [9], we call the numbers<>r<>n(r,n)=lthe cyclotomic numbers associated with the Lucas sequence, where a, fi are the roots of thepolynomial f(z) = z2-Lz + M and the product is extended over all positive integers less than nand prime to n. Each Qn is an integer, and Dn = Hd
Qm where the product is extended over alldivisors d of n. Hence, p is a primitive divisor of Dn if and only lip is a primitive divisor of Qn.Lemma 1 below was shown by several authors (Carmichael, Durst, Ward, and others).2001] 439 A SIMPLE PROOF OF CARMICHAEL'S THEOREM ON PRIMITIVE DIVISORSLemma 1: Let/? be prime and let k be the least positive value of the index i such that/? dividesDr If n ^ 1,2,6 and if/? divides Qn and some Qm with 0n~prk with r >1.Now suppose that n has a prime-power factorization n = p*lp22..*Pil, where Pi,p2,---,Pi a r edistinct primes and £1? e2,...,el are positive integers. Lemma 1 leads us to the following lemma(cf. Halton [5], Ward [9]).Lemma 2: Let n & 1,2,6. A sufficient condition that Dn contains at least one primitive divisor isthat Qn>plp2--PiProof:We prove the contraposition. Suppose that Dn has no primitive divisors. lip is anarbitrary prime factor of Qn, thenp divides some Qm with 0p2 does not divide Q,. Hence, Qn divides PiP2...ph so Qn < pP2—Pi- •Our proof of CarmichaePs theorem is based on the following.Theorem 2: If n * 1,2,6 and if both the rfi1 cyclotornic number associated with z2 - z -1 and thatassociated with z2-3z + 2 are greater than the product of all prime factors of n, then, for everyreal Lucas sequence, Dn contains at least one primitive divisor.Now assume that n is an integer greater than 2 and that a and fi are real, that is, I? - AM ispositive. As Ward observed,Q,(a,fi) =X(a-?P){a-CrP) (1)= U((cc+fi)2-am + Cr+ C% (2)where C,-e2mln and the products are extended over all posjtive integers less than nil and primeton. Since a --p~L and aj3 = M, by putting 0r = 2 +gr +£~r, we haveQn = Qn(a^) = Il(L2-M0ry (3)Fix an arbitrary n > 2. Then Qn can be considered as the function of variables L and M. We shalldiscuss for what values ofZ and M the 71th cyclotornic number Qn has its least value.Lemma 3: Let /1 > 2 be an arbitrary fixed integer. If a and J3 are real, then gw has its least valueeither when L = 1 and M = -1 or when Z = 3 and M = 2.Proof: Take an arbitrary #r and fix it. Since n > 2, we have 0 < 0r < 4. Thus, if M < 0, wehave L2 - M0r >l + 0r, with equality holding only in the case L = 1, M = - 1 . When M > 0, considerthe cases M = 1, M > 1. In the first case we have L > 3, so thatZ2 -M0 r > 9 - 0 r > 9 - 2 l 9 r .Now assume M > 1. Then, since L2 > 4M+1, we haveZ2 -M^ r > 4M+ l-Mi 9 r = 9 - 2 ^ r + ( M - 2 )( 4 - ^ r ) > 9 - 2 ^ rwith equality holding only in the case M = 2, L.= 3. Hence, by formula (3), we have completed
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