We introduce a number field analogue of the Mertens conjecture and demonstrate its falsity for all but finitely many number fields of any given degree. We establish the existence of a logarithmic limiting distribution for the analogous Mertens function, expanding upon work of Ng. Finally, we explore properties of the generalised Mertens function of certain dicyclic number fields as consequences of Artin factorisation.

We study the counts of smooth permutations and smooth polynomials over finite fields. For both counts we prove an estimate with an error term that matches the error term found in the integer setting by de Bruijn more than 70 years ago. The main term is the usual Dickman $\rho$ function, but with its argument shifted.

We determine the order of magnitude of $\log(p_{n,m}/\rho(n/m))$ where $p_{n,m}$ is the probability that a permutation on n elements, chosen uniformly at random, is m-smooth.

We uncover a phase transition in the polynomial setting: the probability that a polynomial of degree n in $\mathbb{F}_q$ is m-smooth changes its behaviour at $m\approx (3/2)\log_q n$.

Compared with algebraic varieties the local monodromy of Drinfeld modules appears to be hopelessly complex: the image of the wild inertia subgroup under Tate module representations is infinite save for the case of potential good reduction. Nonetheless, we show that Tate modules of Drinfeld modules are ramified in a limited way: the image of a sufficiently deep ramification subgroup is trivial. This leads to a new invariant, the local conductor of a Drinfeld module. We establish an upper bound on the conductor in terms of the volume of the period lattice. As an intermediate step we develop a theory of normed lattices in function field arithmetic including the notion of volume. We relate normed lattices to vector bundles on projective curves. With the aid of Castelnuovo–Mumford regularity this implies a volume bound on norms of lattice generators, and the conductor inequality follows. Last but not least we describe the image of inertia for Drinfeld modules with period lattices of rank $1$. Just as in the theory of local $\ell$-adic Galois representations this image is commensurable with a commutative unipotent algebraic subgroup. However, in the case of Drinfeld modules such a subgroup can be a product of several copies of $\mathbf {G}_a$.

Using the special value at $u=1$ of Artin–Ihara L-functions, we associate to every $\mathbb {Z}$-cover of a finite connected graph a polynomial, which we call the Ihara polynomial. We show that the number of spanning trees for the finite intermediate graphs of such a cover can be expressed in terms of the Pierce–Lehmer sequence associated to a factor of the Ihara polynomial. This allows us to express the asymptotic growth of the number of spanning trees in terms of the Mahler measure of this polynomial. Specialising to the situation where the base graph is a bouquet or the dumbbell graph gives us back previous results in the literature for circulant and I-graphs (including the generalised Petersen graphs). We also express the p-adic valuation of the number of spanning trees of the finite intermediate graphs in terms of the p-adic Mahler measure of the Ihara polynomial. When applied to a particular $\mathbb {Z}$-cover, our result gives us back Lengyel’s calculation of the p-adic valuations of Fibonacci numbers.

Let $\mathbb {F}$ be a field and $(s_0,\ldots ,s_{n-1})$ be a finite sequence of elements of $\mathbb {F}$. In an earlier paper [G. H. Norton, ‘On the annihilator ideal of an inverse form’, J. Appl. Algebra Engrg. Comm. Comput. 28 (2017), 31–78], we used the $\mathbb {F}[x,z]$ submodule $\mathbb {F}[x^{-1},z^{-1}]$ of Macaulay’s inverse system $\mathbb {F}[[x^{-1},z^{-1}]]$ (where z is our homogenising variable) to construct generating forms for the (homogeneous) annihilator ideal of $(s_0,\ldots ,s_{n-1})$. We also gave an $\mathcal {O}(n^2)$ algorithm to compute a special pair of generating forms of such an annihilator ideal. Here we apply this approach to the sequence r of the title. We obtain special forms generating the annihilator ideal for $(r_0,\ldots ,r_{n-1})$ without polynomial multiplication or division, so that the algorithm becomes linear. In particular, we obtain its linear complexities. We also give additional applications of this approach.

Multiples zeta values and alternating multiple zeta values in positive characteristic were introduced by Thakur and Harada as analogues of classical multiple zeta values of Euler and Euler sums. In this paper, we determine all linear relations between alternating multiple zeta values and settle the main goals of these theories. As a consequence, we completely establish Zagier–Hoffman’s conjectures in positive characteristic formulated by Todd and Thakur which predict the dimension and an explicit basis of the span of multiple zeta values of Thakur of fixed weight.

Let $\zeta _K(s)$ denote the Dedekind zeta-function associated to a number field K. We give an effective upper bound for the height of the first nontrivial zero other than $1/2$ of $\zeta _K(s)$ under the generalised Riemann hypothesis. This is a refinement of the earlier bound obtained by Sami [‘Majoration du premier zéro de la fonction zêta de Dedekind’, Acta Arith. 99(1) (2000), 61–65].

We show that every finite coloring of the rationals contains monochromatic sets of the form $\{x,y,xy,x+y\}$.

We investigate the discrepancy between the distributions of the random variable $\log L (\sigma , f \times f, X)$ and that of $\log L(\sigma +it, f \times f)$, that is,

$$ \begin{align*} D_{\sigma} (T) := \sup_{\mathcal{R}} |\mathbb{P}_T(\log L(\sigma+it, f \times f) \in \mathcal{R}) - \mathbb{P}(\log L(\sigma, f \times f, X) \in \mathcal{R})|, \end{align*} $$

where the supremum is taken over rectangles $\mathcal {R}$ with sides parallel to the coordinate axes. For fixed $T>3$ and $2/3 <\sigma _0 < \sigma < 1$, we prove that

$$ \begin{align*} D_{\sigma} (T) \ll \frac{1}{(\log T)^{\sigma}}. \end{align*} $$

A monic polynomial $f(x)\in {\mathbb Z}[x]$ of degree N is called monogenic if $f(x)$ is irreducible over ${\mathbb Q}$ and $\{1,\theta ,\theta ^2,\ldots ,\theta ^{N-1}\}$ is a basis for the ring of integers of ${\mathbb Q}(\theta )$, where $f(\theta )=0$. We use the classification of the Galois groups of quartic polynomials, due to Kappe and Warren [‘An elementary test for the Galois group of a quartic polynomial’, Amer. Math. Monthly 96(2) (1989), 133–137], to investigate the existence of infinite collections of monogenic quartic polynomials having a prescribed Galois group, such that each member of the collection generates a distinct quartic field. With the exception of the cyclic case, we provide such an infinite single-parameter collection for each possible Galois group. We believe these examples are new and we provide evidence to support this belief by showing that they are distinct from other infinite collections in the literature. Finally, we devote a separate section to the cyclic case.

For fixed m and a, we give an explicit description of those subsets of ${\mathbb F}_{q}$, q odd, for which both x and $mx+a$ are quadratic residues (and other combinations). These results extend and refine results that date back to Gauss.

We show that if one of various cycle types occurs in the permutation action of a finite group on the cosets of a given subgroup, then every almost conjugate subgroup is conjugate. As a number theoretic application, corresponding decomposition types of primes effect that a number field is determined by the Dedekind zeta function. As a geometric application, coverings of Riemannian manifolds with certain geodesic lifting behaviours must be isometric.

Let p be a prime number. Let $n\geq 2$ be an integer given by $n = p^{m_1} + p^{m_2} + \cdots + p^{m_r}$, where $0\leq m_1 < m_2 < \cdots < m_r$ are integers. Let $a_0, a_1, \ldots , a_{n-1}$ be integers not divisible by p. Let $K = \mathbb Q(\theta )$ be an algebraic number field with $\theta \in {\mathbb C}$ a root of an irreducible polynomial $f(x) = \sum _{i=0}^{n-1}a_i{x^i}/{i!} + {x^n}/{n!}$ over the field $\mathbb Q$ of rationals. We prove that p divides the common index divisor of K if and only if $r>p$. In particular, if $r>p$, then K is always nonmonogenic. As an application, we show that if $n \geq 3$ is an odd integer such that $n-1\neq 2^s$ for $s\in {\mathbb Z}$ and K is a number field generated by a root of a truncated exponential Taylor polynomial of degree n, then K is always nonmonogenic.

One variant of the q-Catalan polynomials is defined in terms of Gaussian polynomials by

$$ \begin{align*}\mathcal{C}_k(q)=\bigg[\begin{matrix}{2k}\\ {k}\end{matrix}\bigg]_q-q \bigg[\begin{matrix}{2k}\\ {k+1} \end{matrix}\bigg]_q.\end{align*} $$

Liu [‘On a congruence involving q-Catalan numbers’, C. R. Math. Acad. Sci. Paris 358 (2020), 211–215] studied congruences of the form $\sum _{k=0}^{n-1} q^k\mathcal {C}_k$ modulo the cyclotomic polynomial $\Phi _n(q)^2$, provided that $n\equiv \pm 1\pmod 3$. Apparently, the case $n\equiv 0\pmod 3$ has been missing from the literature. Our primary purpose is to fill this gap. In addition, we discuss a certain fascinating link to Dirichlet character sum identities.

Using properties of Ramanujan’s theta functions, we give an elementary proof of Hirschhorn’s conjecture on $2^n$-dissection of Euler’s product $E(q):=(q;q)_\infty $.

Let n be a nonzero integer. A set S of positive integers is a Diophantine tuple with the property $D(n)$ if $ab+n$ is a perfect square for each $a,b \in S$ with $a \neq b$. It is of special interest to estimate the quantity $M_n$, the maximum size of a Diophantine tuple with the property $D(n)$. We show the contribution of intermediate elements is $O(\log \log |n|)$, improving a result by Dujella [‘Bounds for the size of sets with the property $D(n)$’, Glas. Mat. Ser. III 39(59)(2) (2004), 199–205]. As a consequence, we deduce that $M_n\leq (2+o(1))\log |n|$, improving the best known upper bound on $M_n$ by Becker and Murty [‘Diophantine m-tuples with the property $D(n)$’, Glas. Mat. Ser. III 54(74)(1) (2019), 65–75].

Cardona and Lario [‘Twists of the genus 2 curve $y^2 = x^6+1$’, J. Number Theory 209 (2020), 195–211] gave a complete classification of the twists of the curve $y^2 = x^6+1$. In this paper, we study the twists of the curve whose automorphism group is defined over a biquadratic extension of the rationals. If the twists are of type B or C in the Cardona–Lario classification, we find a pair of elliptic curves whose product is isogenous with the Jacobian of the twist.

We prove a nonabelian variant of the classical Mordell–Lang conjecture in the context of finite- dimensional central simple algebras. We obtain the following result as a particular case of a more general statement. Let K be an algebraically closed field of characteristic zero, let $B_1,\dots ,B_r\in \mathrm {GL}_m(K)$ be matrices with multiplicatively independent eigenvalues and let V be a closed subvariety of $\mathrm {GL}_m(K)$ not passing through zero. Then there exist only finitely many elements of $\mathrm {GL}_m(K)$ of the form $B_1^{n_1}\cdots B_r^{n_r}$ (as we vary $n_1,\dots ,n_r$ in $\mathbb {Z}$) lying on the subvariety V.

We present a new version of a generalisation to elliptic nets of a theorem of Ward [‘Memoir on elliptic divisibility sequences’, Amer. J. Math. 70 (1948), 31–74] on symmetry of elliptic divisibility sequences. Our results cover all that is known today.

Let Mn and Tn denote the nth Motzkin number and the nth central trinomial coefficient respectively. We prove that for any prime $p\ge 5$,

\begin{equation*}\begin{aligned}\\[-22pt]&\sum_{k=0}^{p-1}M_k^2\equiv \left(\frac{p}{3}\right)\left(2-6p\right)\pmod{p^2},\\&\sum_{k=0}^{p-1}kM_k^2\equiv \left(\frac{p}{3}\right)\left(9p-1\right)\pmod{p^2},\\&\sum_{k=0}^{p-1}T_kM_k\equiv \frac{4}{3}\left(\frac{p}{3}\right)+\frac{p}{6}\left(1-9\left(\frac{p}{3}\right)\right)\pmod{p^2},\\[-6pt]\end{aligned}\end{equation*}

where $\left(-\right)$ is the Legendre symbol. These results confirm three supercongruences conjectured by Z.-W. Sun in 2010.