Reply to Carmichael

Carmichael numbers and pseudoprimes

We now establish a pleasantly simple description of Carmichael numbers, due to Korselt. First, we need the following notion. Let a and p be coprime (usually, p will be prime, but this is not essential). The order of a modulo p, denoted by ordp(a), is the smallest positive integer m such that a ≡ 1 mod p. Recall [NT4.5]: If ordp(a) = m and r is any integer such that a ≡ 1 mod p, then r is a mult...

Higher-order Carmichael numbers

We define a Carmichael number of order m to be a composite integer n such that nth-power raising defines an endomorphism of every Z/nZalgebra that can be generated as a Z/nZ-module by m elements. We give a simple criterion to determine whether a number is a Carmichael number of order m, and we give a heuristic argument (based on an argument of Erdős for the usual Carmichael numbers) that indica...

Pseudoprimes and Carmichael Numbers

Carmichael Numbers With Three Prime Factors

A Carmichael number (or absolute pseudo-prime) is a composite positive integer n such that n|an − a for every integer a. It is not difficult to prove that such an integer must be square-free, with at least 3 prime factors. Moreover if the numbers p = 6m + 1, q = 12m + 1 and r = 18m + 1 are all prime, then n = pqr will be a Carmichael number. However it is not currently known whether there are i...

Sierpiński and Carmichael numbers

We establish several related results on Carmichael, Sierpiński and Riesel numbers. First, we prove that almost all odd natural numbers k have the property that 2nk + 1 is not a Carmichael number for any n ∈ N; this implies the existence of a set K of positive lower density such that for any k ∈ K the number 2nk + 1 is neither prime nor Carmichael for every n ∈ N. Next, using a recent result of ...