Coates-Wiles series and Mirimanoff's polynomial (Q1900872)

Suppose that \(p\) is an odd prime. The Mirimanoff polynomials \(\varphi_j (t)= \sum^{p-1}_{v=1} v^{j-1} t^v\) \((1\leq j\leq p)\) were used by Mirimanoff in connection with the first case of Fermat's last theorem [\textit{P. Ribenboim}, 13 lectures on Fermat's last theorem (1979; Zbl 0456.10006)]. The author considers the polynomial \(g(t)\) which can be defined by \[ (p-2)! g(t)= \sum^{p-2}_{k=0} \sum^k_{i=0} (-1)^i {k\choose i} (1+ i)^{p-2} (1-t )^{p-k-2}. \] Then \(g(t)\equiv \varphi_{p-1} (1/ (1-t)) \pmod p\) for each integer \(t\) with \(t\not\equiv 1\pmod p\). The author expresses the power series \(h_t (x) = \prod_{w\in R} (1+ x)^w -t\) (where \(R\) is the group of \((p-1)\)-th roots of 1 in the ring of \(p\)-adic integers \(\mathbb{Z}_p\)) by means of the polynomial \(g(t)\) as follows \[ h_t (x)= (1- x)^{p-1}+ g(t) x^{p-1}+ \text{higher terms}; \] i.e., in the expansion of \(h_t (x)\) the coefficients of \(x, x^2, \dots, x^{p-2}\) are 0. If \(s\in R\), then \(h_s (x)\) is the Coates-Wiles series corresponding to \((\prod \xi_p^w -s, \dots, \prod \xi^w_{p^n} -s, \dots)\) \((\xi_{p^n}\) is a primitive \(p^n\)-th root of 1 such that \(\xi^p_{p^{n+1}}= \xi_{p^n}\)). The main result is contained in Theorem 1. ``Let \(s\in R\), \(s\neq 1\). Then \((1- s)^{p-1} \equiv 1+ g(s)p \pmod {p^2}\).'' As Corollary 1 to Theorem 1 the author presents another proof of the proposition: ``\(2^{p-1}\equiv 1\pmod {p^2}\) if and only if \(1- 1/2+ 1/3- \dots -1/ (p-1) \equiv 0\pmod p\)''. This proposition is due to G. Eisenstein (1850), not to D. Mirimanoff.