On matrix analogs of Fermat's little theorem (Q2473693)

The author proves a conjecture attributed to V. I. Arnold which asserts that \(\text{ Tr}(A^{p^r}) \equiv \text{ Tr}(A^{p^{r-1}}) \pmod{p^r}\), where \(A\) is an integer matrix, \(\text{ Tr}\) stands for the trace, \(p\) is a prime number and \(r\) is a positive integer. The proof uses algebraic number theory and is quite involved. The author observes that an alternative (simpler) proof can be obtained from an earlier result of \textit{C. J. Smyth} [Am. Math. Mon. 93, 469--471 (1986; Zbl 0602.10006)] which asserts that if \(S_d=\alpha_1^d+\dots+\alpha_m^d,\) where \(\alpha_1,\dots,\alpha_m\) are the roots of a monic integer polynomial, then \(\sum_{d| n} \mu(n/d)S_d \equiv 0 \pmod{n}.\) For integer matrices \(A\), the author obtains the following direct analogue of this congruence \( \sum_{d| n} \mu(n/d)\text{ Tr}(A^d) \equiv 0 \pmod{n},\) which is a more general version of Smyth's result. We remark that in both (Russian and English) versions there is a misprint in Theorem 10, where the power \(n\) stands instead of the power \(d\) as above.