The cardinality of the value sets modulo \(n\) of \(x^2 + x^{-2}\) and \(x^2 + y^2\) (Q992548)

\textit{I. E. Shparlinski} [Number theory. Sailing on the sea of number theory. Proceedings of the 4th China-Japan seminar on number theory, Weihai, China, 2006. Hackensack, NJ: World Scientific. Series on Number Theory and its Applications 2, 155--189 (2007; Zbl 1175.11044)] gave a survey of several results and pose many open problems about the distribution and some geometric properties of points \((x,y)\) on modular hyperbolas \(xy \equiv a \pmod n\). The importance of \({\mathcal H}_n\), the modular hyperbola \(\{(x,y) : xy\equiv 1\bmod n,~1\leq x,y<n\}\), is in the interesting connections between this simply defined discrete set of points and other mathematical topics including Kloosterman sums, consecutive Farey fractions and quasi-randomness. This paper seems a natural addendum to the work by \textit{D. Eichhorn, M. R. Khan, A. H. Stein} and \textit{C. L. Yankov} [Combinatorial number theory. Proceedings of the 3rd `Integers Conference 2007', Carrollton, GA, USA, 2007. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, Integers 9, Suppl., Article A2, 17--39 (2009; Zbl 1178.11004)] who found the formulas for the cardinalities of the sets \(\{x-y\bmod n : (x,y)\in {\mathcal H}_n\},\{x+y\bmod n : (x,y)\in {\mathcal H}_n\} \). Starting from such formulas and recalling also contributions by \textit{W. D. Stangl} [Math. Mag. 69, No. 4, 285--289 (1996; Zbl 1055.11500)] and by [\textit{B. C. Berndt, R. J. Evans} and \textit{K. S. Williams}, Gauss and Jacobi sums. Canadian Mathematical Society Series of Monographs and Advanced Texts. New York, NY: Wiley (1998; Zbl 0906.11001)] the present authors investigate the intersection of \({\mathcal H}_n\) with the modular circles, being able to determine the cardinality of the value sets modulo \(n\) of \(x^2 + y^2\) and \(x^2 + x^{-2}\). The authors acknowledge that Maple (www.maplesoft.com) is the most valuable research tool at their disposal not only in discovering all the formulas but also in the proving stage.