On primes in arithmetic progression having a prescribed primitive root

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Abstract: Let a,f and g be integers, with a and f coprime. Under the generalized Riemann hypothesis it follows from work of Hooley and Lenstra that the set of primes p such that p=a(mod f) and g is primitive root mod p has a natural density. In this note we explicitly evaluate this density and give some applications of this result.


Let \(g\) be an integer which is neither \(-1\) nor a square and let \(\pi_g(x;f,a)\) be the number of primes \(p\equiv a\pmod f\) not exceeding \(x\) and having \(g\) for a primitive root. It was shown by \textit{H. W. Lenstra jun.} [Invent. Math. 42, 201-224 (1977; Zbl 0362.12012)] under GRH that \[ \pi_g(x,f,a)=\delta(a,f,g)x/\log x+O(x\log\log x/\log^2x), \] where \(\delta_g(a,f,g)\) is given as a convergent series and later the author (MPI-preprint 57, 1998, per bib.) represented \(\delta_g(a,f,g)\) as an infinite product. Here an asymptotic formula is obtained for the sum \[ S(x;a,f,g,\varepsilon)\sum_{\substack{ p\leq x\\ p\in P(a,f,g,\varepsilon)}} {\varphi(p-1)\over p-1}, \] where \(\varepsilon=\pm 1\) and \(P(a,f,g,\varepsilon)\) is the set of primes \(p\) satisfying \(p\equiv a\pmod f\), \(({g\over p})=\varepsilon\) and \((p-1,h)=1\), \(h\) being the maximal integer such that \(g\) is a \(h\)-th power. This result is used to deduce (under GRH) from Lenstra's theorem the relation \(\pi_g(x,f,a)=2S(x;a,f,g,-1)+O(x\log\log x/\log^2x)\). The undefined constant \(\beta\) in the statement of Theorem 1 should be understood as the constant \(b\), appearing in the seventh line of the next page.




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