On congruences involving Bernoulli numbers and the quotients of Fermat and Wilson

Congruences; primitive roots; residue systems (11A07) Binomial coefficients; factorials; (q)-identities (11B65) Bernoulli and Euler numbers and polynomials (11B68)

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A difference equation for certain Bernoulli polynomials is employed to obtain the residues modulo \(p^2\) and \(p^3\), \(p\) a prime, of the \(B\)-numbers in terms of sums of like powers of numbers in arithmetic progression (cf. \textit{J. W. L. Glaisher} [Q. J. Math. 32, 271--305 (1901; JFM 31.0186.03)] for the method and for results mod \(p\)). The residues of the values of the polynomials for certain fractions with small denominators are known and yield results which may, be expressed in terms of Fermat's quotients: \(q_a = (a^{p-1}-1)/p\), \((a, p) = 1\), and Wilson's quotient. The residues for certain sums of reciprocals of numbers in arithmetic progression and binomial coefficients are also given. These, combined with the conditions \(q_2\equiv 0\) and \(q_3\equiv 0\pmod p\), of Wieferich and Mirimanoff, resp., for the first case of Fermat's Last Theorem, yield the following. The equation \(x^p + y^p +z^p=0\) has no solutions prime to \(p\) unless \[ \sum_{r=1}^{[p/n]}\frac 1r \equiv 0\pmod p\quad\text{for }n = 2, 3, 4, 6,\tag{1} \] and unless \[ \binom{p-1}{[p/n]}\equiv (-1)^{[p/n]}\pmod{p^2}\quad\text{for }n = 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.\tag{2} \] A large number of known results modulo \(p\), due to various authors, are included in the extensions to the modulus \(p^2\) of the present paper.

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