Existence of cycles in Ducci's four-number game with modular multiplication (Q6546716)

Let us recall that Ducci's Four Number Game is a game in which the mapping \N\[ \N\phi: \mathbb{N} \ni (a, b, c, d) \mapsto (|a-b|, |b-c|, |c-d|, |d-a|) \in \mathbb{N} \N\] \Nis iterated. It has been shown by Freedman that this game will always converge to \((0, 0, 0, 0)\) in finitely many steps.\N\NIn the paper, the author considers a variation of the Ducci game and works with the mapping \N\[ \N\Phi: \mathbb{Z}_{n} \ni (a, b, c, d) \mapsto (ab, bc, cd, da) \in \mathbb{Z}_{n}, \N\] \Nwhere \(n\) is a fixed positive integer \(\geq 2\). The main result of the paper states that a nontrivial cycle exists if and only if \(n\) is neither a Fermat prime nor a power of 2. Moreover, if nontrivial cycles exist, the author presents methods to generate at least one of them.