Quadratic Residues

Algebra

Aditya Khurmi

November 13, 2021

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Introduction

“Quadratic Residues” here is a short term for a fancy tree of concepts

and results that branch out from the simple idea of solving quadratic
equations modulo p.
We will first see what are quadratic residues, talk a bit about their
properties. But the focus of this session would mainly be on the idea of
“Legendre Symbol Manipulation”, which sadly is an idea I have mostly
seen in solutions to problems rather than one compiled resource which
makes it more accessible and common (like Vieta Jumping).

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Please note

We will mostly ignore p = 2 in our theorems (not definitions) unless

specified (as revenge for the time you missed this case on an Olympiad).
Also, one of the key themes of my books is to view the big picture (and
think combinatorially). The key theme here is going to be: think
algebraically!

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What are Quadratic Residues?

So what’s all the fuss about?

Definition
Let p be a prime. A number a is called a quadratic residue mod p if
there exists an integer x such that x2 ≡ a (mod p). It is called a
quadratic nonresidue otherwise. We use the shorthand QR to
denote a quadratic residue and NQR for a qudratic nonresidue.
√
This is in some sense finding out when a is defined modulo p.

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Simple Properties

Just like when a > 0, x2 = a has two solutions if a > 0, one solution if
a = 0, otherwise 0. Similarly show that
Lemma
If a ̸≡ 0 (mod p) is a quadratic residue, then x2 ≡ a (mod p) has two
solutions.

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How many Quadratic Residues?

The entire set of quadratic residues is given by

{12 , 22 , . . . , (p − 1)2 }.

When can two elements equal?

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Think algebraically!
If x2 ≡ y 2 (mod p), then the only possibility is x ≡ y or x ≡ −y
(mod p).

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Hence the set of all quadratic residues is
(  )
p−1 2

2 2
1 ,2 ,..., .
2

So there are (p − 1)/2 quadratic residues and hence (p − 1)/2 quadratic

nonresidues!

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Legendre’s Symbol

Now consider the question, is x a quadratic residue? How do we

convert this to an algebraic expression? We have the following
extremely useful notation
Definition
Let p be a prime, and x be an integer. Then we define the Legendre’s
notation as 
  
x 1 if x is a QR
= 0 if x ≡ 0 (mod p)
p 
−1 otherwise


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Sample Use: Fermat’s Christmas Theorem

The famous Fermat’s christmas theorem states for a prime p > 2, the
number −1 is a quadratic residue mod p if p ≡ 1 (mod p) and a
quadratic non-residue if p ≡ 3 (mod 4).
There’s a nice algebraic way to write this:
 
−1
= (−1)(p−1)/2 .
p

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Operations

As of now, the symbol isn’t very useful. When we define a function, we

often consider questions such as whether the function is additive,
multiplicative, bounded, involutive, etc.

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So let’s see how quadratic residues are related. Clearly if x, y are
quadratic residues, then xy is also a quadratic residue. However note
that we can’t say anything about x ± y. Hence let’s just think about
multiplication.

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Multiplication

Lemma
We have the following (remember that we are dealing with non-zero
residues)
1 QR × QR = QR;
2 QR × N QR = N QR;
3 N QR × N QR = QR.

The first one makes sense. The second one is slightly intuitive (because
it is similar to what holds for normal integers). The proof is easy too
(use the method of contradiction and multiply by an inverse).
What about the last case?

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This has a very fun combinatorial proof! Let X be the set of quadratic
residues and Y be the set of quadratic non-residues. Observe that
X ∪ Y = Fp . Further, |X| = |Y | and they are disjoint.
Pick any NQR n. Then nFp ≡ Fp (mod p) (weird notation but you get
the point). However, nX is the set Y (since a QR times a NQR is a
NQR), so nY must be congruent to the set X, and so we have our
result!

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Beautiful Result

So we have the following beautiful result:

Theorem (Legendre’s Symbol is completely multiplicative)
Let a, b be integers and p a prime. Then
    
a b ab
= .
p p p

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Legendre Symbol Manipulation

So what does this scary sounding topic really mean? At its heart, it
basically means: convert everything to algebra! The Legendre symbol
was our first step in doing that.
They key result we will use to change the new notation to algebra is
Euler’s theorem:  
a
≡ a(p−1)/2 (mod p)
p

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Wait, what?

Why is this result true?

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Proof

Firstly observe that this is true if a ≡ 0 or a is a QR, since then for

some x,
a(p−1)/2 ≡ (x2 )(p−1)/2 ≡ xp−1 ≡ 1 (mod p).
What about the case when a is not a quadratic residue?

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Ignore X = 0. Observe that p | X p−1 − 1 = (X (p−1)/2 − 1)(X (p−1)/2 + 1).
Hence it divides one of these. Now there are (p − 1)/2 numbers for
which it divides the first factor (namely all quadratic residues).
Since there are just p − 1 non-zero numbers mod p, and degree
X (p−1)/2 − 1 is (p − 1)/2, it feels like X (p−1)/2 ≡ 1 (mod p) can’t have
any other roots. So all the other remainders (NQRs) are roots of
X (p−1)/2 + 1 ≡ 0 (mod p), and we are done.

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Note 1

The degree part was slightly sloppy. In reality, we can’t easily bound
the number of roots of polynomials in fields. However, Lagrange’s
theorem tells us this is possible here. To read more about it, you can
refer to the section “Lagrange’s Theorem” on page 153 of the book.

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Note 2

We can also prove the result using primitive roots, where we have the
following incredible result:
Lemma (Primitive Roots and Quadratic Residues)
Let g be a primitive root modulo p. Then for any a ̸≡ 0 (mod p), write
a = g k . Then a is a quadratic residue if and only if k is even.

Problem
Show that the Legendre’s symbol is multiplicative using Euler’s theorem.

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Next result

The next result we will use is

Lemma
Let p > 2 be a prime. Then for any integer x,
(
−1 if p − 1 | x
1x + 2x + · · · + (p − 1)x ≡ (mod p).
0 otherwise

You can try and prove this (Hint: primitive roots).

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Application

Let’s prove this:

Lemma
If gcd(a, p) = 1 and p is an odd prime, then
p  
X an + b
= 0.
p
n=1

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Simple proof

Just observe that {an + b} is a complete set of residues mod p. So +1

and −1 pair up.

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Try this now

Now try this:

Lemma
Let p be an odd prime and a be an integer with gcd(a, p) = 1. Then
p  2 
X n +a
= −1.
p
n=1

The simple logic won’t work here.

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Let’s use Algebra!

Let’s use algebra on the first problem first. As suggested, we use

Euler’s
 result.
 Firstly, multiply by a−1 so we have to prove the problem
for n+cp . Here goes nothing: (w = (p − 1)/2)

p   p
X n+c X
≡ (n + c)w
p
n=1 n=1
p    
X
w w w−1 w
≡ n + n c + ··· + c (mod p)
1
n=1
p p p
!   ! !
X
w w X
w−1 w
X
0
≡ n + c n + ··· + c n
1
n=1 n=1 n=1
≡0 (mod p).

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Small catch

We evaulated the value mod p. So if S is the sum, then we just showed

that S ≡ 0 (mod p) not S = 0. But since −p ≤ S ≤ p (why?), this
gives us S ∈ {−p, 0, p}. I leave it to you to argue why S must equal 0.

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Quadratics

The same for quadratics:

p  2  p
X n +a X
S= ≡ (n2 + a)w
p
n=1 n=1
p    
X
p−1 w p−2 w
= n + n a + ··· + a
1
n=1

Again, pair up and use the lemma:

p p p
!   ! !
X w X X
S≡ np−1 + a np−3 + · · · + aw n0
1
n=1 n=1 n=1
≡ −1 (mod p)

Now do a similar analysis as before to conclude it must equal −1.

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General result

For general quadratics, a useful result we can obtain from this is:
Lemma
If a, b are not congruent, then
p  
X (n + a)(n + b)
= −1.
p
n=1

There’s also a result for a general quadratic an2 + bn + c, but we won’t

use it. If interested, you can look at Problem 8.4.2 on Page 220.

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Example Problem

Problem
Let p be an odd prime and let Fp denote (the field of ) integers modulo
p. How many elements are in the set

{x2 : x ∈ Fp } ∩ {y 2 + 1 : y ∈ Fp }?

Basically we want to find how many numbers a ∈ Fp are such that

(a, a + 1) is a pair of consecutive quadratic residues.

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Here’s the key question: how to convert this to an algebraic condition?

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Hint: Note that

 
a 2
 if a is a QR
+1= 1 if a ≡ 0 .
p 
0 otherwise


This can be used as a test whether a is a NQR.

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Observe that

 
a
 
a+1
 4
  if a, a + 1 are QRs > 0
+1 +1 = 2 if one of a, a + 1 ≡ 0
p p 
0 if any one of them is a NQR


So sum over to get the number.

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Explain why we have, if N is the number of solutions,
p−1         
X a a+1 −1
4N = +1 +1 +2+ 1+
p p p
a=0
p−1  2      !   
X a +a a a+1 −1
= + + +1 +2+ 1+
p p p p
a=0
 
−1
= −1 + p + 3 +
p
= p + 2 + (−1)(p−1)/2 .

Hence
1 
N = p + 2 + (−1)(p−1)/2 .
4

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Points on the circle x2 + y 2 ≡ 1 in Fp

Problem
Find the number of solutions to x2 + y 2 ≡ 1 (mod p).

Firstly, will this have > 0 solutions?

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Suppose p = 7 so that the QRs are {0, 1, 2, 4}. Hence, we can list all
possible values of x2 + y 2 (mod 7) as:

02 12 22 32 42 52 62
02 0 1 4 2 2 4 1
12 1 2 5 3 3 5 2
22 4 5 1 6 6 1 5
32 2 3 5 4 4 5 3
42 2 3 5 4 4 5 3
52 4 5 1 6 6 1 5
62 1 2 5 3 3 5 2

Note that this has 8 solutions. How do we find the number of solutions?

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Combinatorial idea: Look at 1 row at a time. So we fix y = c, and
want to find the number of solutions to x2 ≡ 1 − c2 ≡ a (mod p) where
a is some number in Fp .
As mentioned before, if x2 ≡ a (mod p) has 1 solution, it has two. If
a ≡ 0, then 1 solution. How do we write this algebraically?

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The number of solutions to x2 ≡ a (mod p) can be given by
 
a
1+ .
p

Now sum over all the rows.

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The number of solutions equal
p−1 p−1 
1 − c2 c2 − 1
   X 
X −1 p−1
1+ =p+ = p − (−1) 2
p p p
c=0 c=0

Voila!

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Problem to Try

Try this problem now:

Problem (Iran TST 2020/6)
p−1
p is an odd prime number and n = 2 . Find all n-tuples
(x1 , x2 , . . . , xn ) ∈ Fnp such that
n
X n
X n
X
xi ≡ x2i ≡ · · · ≡ xni (mod p).
i=1 i=1 i=1

The links to hints and the solution for this are on Page 227.

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Dirichlet’s amazing theorem

An amazing result by Dirichlet states that

Theorem
For a prime p ≡ 3 (mod 4), there are more quadratic residues in the
first half (1, (p − 1)/2) than the second half ((p + 1)/2, p − 1).

Since the number of quadratic residues equals to the number of

quadratic nonresidues, hence this is the same as saying that in the first
half, there are more quadratic residues than quadratic nonresidues.
This algebraically looks like
p−1
2  
X a
> 0.
p
a=0

Despite its simplicity, this has no known elementary proof.

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