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Research notes on every problem, and a library of the papers behind them. Built from the open erdos repository.

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Claim. Theorem 2 (p. 2) is printed as "For every 0<ϵ≤10<\epsilon\le1, and every integer k≥1k\ge1, there exists an integer N=N(ϵ,k)N=N(\epsilon,k) such that for every prime p≥2p\ge2, and every integer 0≤a≤p−10\le a\le p-1, there exist integers x1,…,xNx_1,\ldots,x_N such that 1≤xi≤pϵ1\le x_i\le p^\epsilon, and a≡1x1k+⋯+1xNk(modp)a\equiv\frac1{x_1^k}+\cdots+\frac1{x_N^k}\pmod p" (Integers 4 (2004), #A20, p. 2, as in arXiv v2; arXiv v1 and the copy on the author's papers page print x1,…,xnx_1,\ldots,x_n). With k=1k=1 this is the question of Problem 1180 for 0<ϵ≤10<\epsilon\le1, with Cϵ=N(ϵ,1)C_\epsilon=N(\epsilon,1) and repetition allowed, read with at most NN summands. As printed, with exactly NN summands, the statement holds only for large pp: for a prime with pϵ<2p^\epsilon<2, and for p=2p=2 at every ϵ≤1\epsilon\le1, the only admissible xix_i is 11, and a sum of exactly NN of them is the single residue N mod pN\bmod p. The proof covers the finitely many small primes by enlarging NN, which works when NN bounds the number of summands, and the one-line completion of Shparlinski's and Glibichuk's pages (a residue aa is the sum of aa copies of 1=1−11=1^{-1}) gives them; Glibichuk's introduction restates the theorem for sufficiently large pp. For ϵ>1\epsilon>1 the set {n−1:n≤pϵ}\{n^{-1}:n\le p^\epsilon\} contains the set for ϵ=1\epsilon=1, so Cϵ=C1C_\epsilon=C_1 serves (the monotonicity remark of the problem page). The resulting NN is not explicit. The theorem is compiled on the result page theorem_2; the digest is on the card croot_2004_sums_reciprocal_powers_modulo_prime.

Argument, in outline. The Bourgain--Katz--Tao sum-product estimate is applied to the sums of inverse kkth powers of small primes, and an exponential-sum lemma then writes every residue as t1t2+t3t4+⋯+t15t16t_1t_2+t_3t_4+\cdots+t_{15}t_{16} with the tit_i in a set TT of sums of inverse kkth powers, which the paper counts as at most 16h216h^2 terms 1/(qq′)k1/(qq')^k (pp. 2--5). The outline records the structure only; no step is checked. The paper's introduction states the Erdős--Graham question in the monograph's form and credits its first affirmative answer to Shparlinski, through Karatsuba's result in the simplified form of Friedlander and Iwaniec; that answer is on Shparlinski's page.

Acceptance. Refereed: Ernie Croot, Sums of the form 1/x1k+⋯+1/xnk1/x_1^k+\cdots+1/x_n^k modulo a prime, Integers 4 (2004), Paper A20, per the journal's volume contents and the Zenodo deposit of the paper; the journal's text, deposited at Zenodo under CC-BY-4.0, agrees with arXiv:math/0403360v2 (21 October 2004); arXiv v1 and the copy on the author's papers page differ from it in the introduction and Theorem 2. The page is named by the first arXiv posting, v1 of 22 March 2004, under the title "Reciprocal power sums modulo a prime". Not reviewed: the site's curator names Croot, in the problem's commentary, only for the earlier bound of (log⁡p)3+o(1)(\log p)^{3+o(1)} summands from his 1999 paper, not for this theorem, so no reviewed evidence is listed. Nothing here is independently reviewed by this project.

Depends on. Nothing on the wiki; the theorem is proved in the refereed paper linked above.