On digits of Mersenne numbers (Q2104853)

Summary: Motivated by recently developed interest to the distribution of \(q\)-ary digits of Mersenne numbers \(M_p = 2^p - 1\), where \(p\) is prime, we estimate rational exponential sums with \(M_p\), \(p \leq X\), modulo a large power of a fixed odd prime \(q\). In turn this immediately implies the normality of strings of \(q\)-ary digits amongst about \((\log X)^{3{/} 2 + o (1)}\) rightmost digits of \(M_p\), \(p \leq X\). Previous results imply this only for about \((\log X)^{1 + o (1)}\) rightmost digits.