Modular periodicity of binomial coefficients (Q2488831)

The author's main result is the following: Let \(p\) be a prime. Let \(h,k\) be positive integers with \(h\not\equiv 0\pmod p)\) and \(k\geq 5\). Suppose that \(h\) is not too large compared to \(k\), and that \[ {k\choose i+h}\equiv(-1)^h{h\choose i}\pmod p \] for \(0\leq i\leq k-h\). Then \(k+1\) is a power of \(p\). As a consequence, the author obtains a result concerning multiplicative subgroups of a finite field.