Distribution of primitive \(\lambda\)-roots of composite moduli. II (Q867436)

The Carmichael \(\lambda\)-function, \(\lambda(q)\), is the maximal order of an element of the multiplicative group \((\mathbb Z/q\mathbb Z)^*\). An element of \((\mathbb Z/q\mathbb Z)^*\) of order \(\lambda(q)\) is called a primitive \(\lambda\)-root modulo \(q\). In this series, the authors study the distribution of primitive \(\lambda\)-roots. Suppose that \(a, b, c, d\) are integers such that \((ad - bc, q) = 1\) and \(I, J\) are two intervals in \(\mathbb Z/q\mathbb Z\), and let \(H(q)\) denote the set of primitive \(\lambda\)-roots modulo \(q\). The authors prove that for any fixed \(\varepsilon > 0\), one has \[ \#\big\{ x \in H(q) : (ax + bx^{-1}, cx + dx^{-1}) \in I \times J \big\} = \frac {| I| \, | J| }{q^2} | H(q)| + O(q^{2/3 + \varepsilon}). \tag \(*\) \] Here, \(x^{-1}\) denotes the multiplicative inverse of \(x\) in \((\mathbb Z/q\mathbb Z)^*\). The other main result of the paper concerns the error term in (\(*\)) in the special case when \(J = [1, q]\), \(a = d = 1\) and \(b = c = 0\). The authors show that under these restrictions, the error term in (\(*\)) can be reduced to \(O(q^{1/2 + \varepsilon})\). Thus, they establish the uniform distribution of primitive \(\lambda\)-roots modulo \(q\) in intervals \(I\) of lengths \(| I| \geq q^{1/2 + \varepsilon}\). The proofs use upper bounds for Gauss sums and Kloosterman sums twisted by multiplicative characters. PartI is to appear as Z. Zheng, L. Xia and T. Cochrane, Distribution of \(\lambda\)-roots of composite moduli, Manuscr. Math.]