login

Year-end appeal: Please make a donation to the OEIS Foundation to support ongoing development and maintenance of the OEIS. We are now in our 61st year, we have over 378,000 sequences, and we’ve reached 11,000 citations (which often say “discovered thanks to the OEIS”).

A200523
Least m>0 such that n = 3^x-y^2 (mod m) has no solution, or 0 if no such m exists.
4
0, 0, 0, 0, 8, 0, 8, 9, 0, 0, 12, 0, 8, 9, 8, 20, 9, 0, 0, 12, 8, 80, 8, 0, 45, 9, 0, 0, 8, 80, 8, 9, 0, 45, 9, 20, 8, 21, 8, 80, 9, 80, 28, 9, 8, 0, 8, 0, 91, 9, 20, 36, 8, 0, 8, 12, 0, 80, 9, 80, 8, 9, 8, 28, 15, 0, 91, 9, 8, 45, 8, 0, 0, 15, 0, 20, 8, 0
OFFSET
0,5
COMMENTS
If such an m>0 exists, this proves that n is not in A051214, i.e., not of the form 3^x-y^2. On the other hand, if there are integers x, y such that n=3^x-y^2, then we know that a(n)=0.
LINKS
EXAMPLE
See A200507 for developed examples.
Some of the larger values include a(107)=17732, a(146)=1924, a(347)=4400, a(416)=2044, a(458)>30000.
PROG
(PARI) A200523(n, b=3, p=3)={ my( x=0, qr, bx, seen ); for( m=3, 9e9, while( x^p < m, issquare(b^x-n) & return(0); x++); qr=vecsort(vector(m, y, y^2+n)%m, , 8); seen=0; bx=1; until( bittest(seen+=1<<bx, bx=bx*b%m), for(i=1, #qr, qr[i]<bx & next; qr[i]>bx & break; next(3))); return(m))}
KEYWORD
nonn
AUTHOR
M. F. Hasler, Nov 18 2011
STATUS
approved