Problem

Source: IMO Shortlist 2011, Number Theory 8

Tags: function, number theory, IMO Shortlist



Let $k \in \mathbb{Z}^+$ and set $n=2^k+1.$ Prove that $n$ is a prime number if and only if the following holds: there is a permutation $a_{1},\ldots,a_{n-1}$ of the numbers $1,2, \ldots, n-1$ and a sequence of integers $g_{1},\ldots,g_{n-1},$ such that $n$ divides $g^{a_i}_i - a_{i+1}$ for every $i \in \{1,2,\ldots,n-1\},$ where we set $a_n = a_1.$ Proposed by Vasily Astakhov, Russia