# Primality Testing and Carmichael numbers by gjjur4356

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```									                Primality Testing and Carmichael numbers
Andrew Granville
The problem of distinguishing prime numbers from composite numbers is one of the
most fundamental and important in arithmetic. It has remained as a central question in
our subject from ancient times to this day 1, and yet still fascinates and frustrates us all.
From the very de nition of primality, that an integer
n is prime if it has no divisor between 2 and pn,
one can evolve a simple test for primality: Just check whether any integer d between 2 and
pn actually divides n. This is an easily implemented test for, say, n = 107 or n = 11035,
but how about for n = 123456789012345677? This requires over a billion test divides,
and if one were to try to verify that a given 100 digit integer n is prime in this way it
would take longer than the remaining lifespan of our universe, even on an impossibly fast
computer!
One thus needs a more sophisticated approach to handle large numbers. Perhaps a
di erent de nition of prime numbers will furnish us with a quicker method ? One such
de nition follows from Wilson's Theorem (1770):
n is prime if and only if n divides (n ; 1)! + 1.
So to nd out whether n is prime we multiply together all integers less than n, add 1, and
see whether the resulting number is divisible by n. However this requires multiplying n ; 3
p
pairs of numbers together, as opposed to n test divides earlier, so takes even longer than
our previous method.
The ancient Chinese made the startling discovery that
If n is prime then n divides 2n ; 2,
which implies that
(1)         If n does not divide 2n ; 2 then n is composite (that is, not prime).
So we now have a new, and quite di erent, criterion, which will tell us that certain numbers
n are composite. However, if a number fails this criterion (that is, if n does divide 2n ; 2),
then it doesn't, a priori, tell us that n is prime but let's check it out:
2 divides 22 ; 2 = 2                       :::
3 divides 2 3 ;2 = 6                  101 divides 2101 ; 2
4 doesn't divide 24 ; 2 = 14          103 divides 2103 ; 2
5 divides 25 ; 2 = 30                 105 doesn't divide 2105 ; 2
6 doesn't divide 2   6 ; 2 = 62       107 divides 2107 ; 2
7 divides 27 ; 2 = 126                109 divides 2109 ; 2
8 doesn't divide 2   8 ; 2 = 254      111 doesn't divide 2111 ; 2
9 doesn't divide 29 ; 2 = 510              etc.
1   from Article 329 of Gauss's Disquisitiones Arithmeticae (1801)
1
In all of these examples we observe that n is prime exactly when n divides 2n ; 2, and
is composite otherwise. According to E. T. Bell, the ancient Chinese thought that this is
always true 2, as did Leibniz many centuries later. However the (smallest such) example,
n = 341, refutes this belief since 341 = 11 31 is composite, yet 341 divides 2341 ; 2.
Further computation shows that such composite n seem to be rare and so we de ne
composite number n to be a base 2 pseudoprime if n divides 2n ; 2. To exhibit quite
how rare these are, note that up to 1010 there are around 450 million primes, but only
about fteen thousand such base 2 pseudoprimes, while up to 2 5 1010 there are over
a billion primes, and yet fewer than 22 thousand base 2 pseudoprimes. So, if you were to
choose a random number n < 2 5 1010 for which n divides 2n ; 2 then there would be
a less than one-in- fty-thousand chance that your number would be composite.
Testing whether 2n;1 1 mod n is easily implemented on a computer, as follows:
(i) Write n ; 1 in base 2, say n ; 1 = 2ak + 2ak;1 + : : : + 2a1 where ak > ak;1 > : : : > a1
(ii) Compute rj 22j mod n for 0 j ak , by taking r0 = 2 and rj+1 rj mod n for       2

each j 0
(iii) Finally, since 2n;1 = 22ak 22 k;1 : : : 22a1 , we have 2n;1 rak rak;1 : : : ra1 (mod n).
a

This algorithm requires no more than 20 log3 n operations so that, for a 40 digit
number n, this `pseudoprime test' takes a few million operations (a few seconds on a PC)
whereas test division takes more than a billion billion operations (over a thousand years
on a PC). It has been suggested that one might obtain a practical primality test by writing
down a list of all base 2 pseudoprimes, and then, if n divides 2n ; 2 but is not on the list,
one knows that n is a prime. Since there's less than 22 thousand base 2 pseudoprimes up
to 2 5 1010, this method works well in this range, and will continue to work well as
long as the base 2 pseudoprimes remain so scarce. However, this won't always be so since
Malo proved, in 1903, that there are in nitely many odd composite base 2 pseudoprimes,
by showing that if n = ab (with a b > 1) is such a number, then so is n0 = 2n ; 1 3 . This
is proved by observing that, since a divides n which divides n0 ; 1, thus xa ; 1 divides
xn ; 1, which divides x(xn0 ;1 ; 1) = xn0 ; x, and so, in particular with x = 2, we get that
2a ; 1 divides 2n ; 1 = n0 which divides 2n0 ; 2.
Our hope of obtaining a complete list of base 2 pseudoprimes is thus doomed, but we
might still nd all base 2 pseudoprimes up to some large number x. However, in 1982,
Pomerance showed that there are more than e(log x)c base 2 pseudoprimes x, for some
2 However it is now believed that Bell had no evidence of this, but was embellishing a
good story: Just as standards of mathematical rigor have greatly improved over the last
hundred years, so too the standards of rigor of mathematicaln history.
3 and then we get the sequence n 2n ; 1 22n ;1 ; 1 222 ;1 ;1 ; 1 : : : of base 2 pseu-

doprimes by iterating this observation.
2
constant c, 0 < c < 1, once x is su ciently large4. This is quite a fast growing function of
x and shows that our hoped for, easy and quick primality test won't be practical for large
values of x. So what else can we do ?
On October 18th, 1640 Fermat wrote, in a letter to his con dante Frenicle, that the
fact that n divides 2n ; 2 whenever n is prime is not an isolated phenomenon. Indeed that,
if n is prime then
(2)                           n divides an ; a for all integers a
which implies that
If n doesn't divide an ; a for some integer a then n is composite.
So instead of considering pseudoprimes to base 2, we can consider pseudoprimes to any
base a: it turns out that such pseudoprimes are rare, though some do exist. However, since
base 2 pseudoprimes are rare, and base 3 pseudoprimes are also rare, one would guess that
numbers that are both base 2 and base 3 pseudoprimes must be extremely rare perhaps
none exist at all ? Unfortunately some do exist, such as 2701, which divides both 22701 ; 2
and 32701 ; 3, yet 2701 = 37 73 is composite. Numbers that are pseudoprimes to bases 2,
3 and 5 simultaneously should be even rarer, but again do exist, for instance n = 181 361
and, indeed, there are examples for any nite set of bases. So maybe we should ask whether
there are any composite numbers n which are pseudoprime for every base a ? That is, for
which (2) holds. Such a number n would have to have certain extraordinary properties:
(i) n must be squarefree, else if p2 divides n then p2 jnjpn ; p which is false.
(ii) If prime p divides n then p ; 1 must divide n ; 1, for if a is a primitive root mod p
then a has order p ; 1 mod p, but an;1 1 (mod p) by (2).
In 1899 Korselt5 observed that these two conditions imply that (2) holds (which the
reader may verify { hint: use the Chinese Remainder Theorem). We thus state
Korselt's criterion: n divides an ; a for all integers a if and
only if n is squarefree and p ; 1 divides n ; 1 for all primes p dividing n.
So now, to determine whether (2) holds for n, we need only verify a few simple properties
of its prime factors. Korselt did not exhibit an example of such an integer n, and he
might have thought that no such n exist. However such n do exist, as was discovered by
Carmichael in 1910, the smallest being 561 = 3 11 17. These numbers are now known
as Carmichael numbers, but surely would have been known as Korselt numbers had he
just done a few computations !
4  for those readers not accustomed to such `estimates', we note that, e(log x)c is larger
than any given power of log x, and smaller than any given (positive) power of x, for
su ciently large x.
5 responding to a `Probleme Chinois' from L'Intermediaire des Mathematiciens, a turn-

of-the-century French journal, similar to today's The American Mathematical Monthly
3
The rst few Carmichael numbers are
561 = 3        11   17
1105 = 5        13   17
1729 = 7         13   19
2465 = 5        17   29
2821 = 7        13   31
Notice how they all have three prime factors. To obtain one with four prime factors we
must go out to
41041 = 7 11 13 41
and for ve prime factors to
825265 = 5 7 17 19 73:
Carmichael computed fteen such numbers in his 1912 paper and stated that `this list
might be inde nitely extended'. However it soon became apparent that it was going to be
di cult to prove that his list could be so lengthened, and this statement has since been
considered an open problem6.
Korselt's criterion may be re-written as follows:
n = p1p2 : : : pk is a Carmichael number if and only if the pi 's are distinct and
L = LCM p1 ; 1 p2 ; 1 : : : pk ; 1] divides n ; 1.
So, to verify that those numbers listed above are indeed Carmichael numbers, we only
need check that L = 80 = LCM 2 10 16] divides 560, that L = 48 divides 1104, that
L = 36 divides 1728, that L = 112 divides 2464, that L = 60 divides 2820, that L =
120 divides 41040, and nally that L = 144 divides 825264. Notice that L is extremely
small compared to n ; 1 in each example, which gives us a hint as to how to nd more
Carmichael numbers: Let's try to nd a set of primes where these primes minus one have
1729 is best-known from the story of when Hardy visited Ramanujan in hospital,
and pronounced his taxicab number, 1729, to be a dull number. Ramanujan refuted this
by noting that it is the smallest number which is the sum of two cubes in two di erent
ways. However Ramanujan didn't say that 1729 is also interesting as being the third
smallest Carmichael number! Carl Pomerance further observes that the second smallest
Carmichael number, 1105, is the sum of two squares in more ways than any preceeding
number. We leave it to the reader to come up with the analogous remark for 561, the
smallest Carmichael number!
6 see Alford's forthcoming paper Chasing Carmichael numbers for a revealing discussion

of Carmichael's paper.
4
a surprisingly small common multiple. For example, since the prime divisors of 1729 are
p = 6 + 1 q = 12 + 1 r = 18 + 1 giving L = 36, we can generalize this to
(3)                      p = 6k + 1 q = 12k + 1 r = 18k + 1
for integer k 1, giving L = 36k. Since pqr ; 1 = 36k(36k2 + 11k + 1), Korselt's criterion
tells us that pqr is a Carmichael number provided each of p q and r are prime. It is easy
to nd many values of k for which the three numbers in (3) are simultaneously prime, but
can we prove that there are in nitely many such k ? This is considered an outstandingly
di cult open problem in analytic number theory, and although experts are certain that
in nitely many such k do exist, there have been no plausible ideas as to how to prove such
a result.
One can obtain other sequences in which one expects in nitely many prime triplets or
quadruplets or quintuplets, which would give rise to in nitely many Carmichael numbers,
for instance
(12k + 5)(36k + 13)(48k + 17)     (6k + 7)(12k + 13)(18k + 19)
(28k + 5)(112k + 17)(196k + 29)     (30k + 7)(60k + 13)(150k + 31)
(180k + 7)(300k + 11)(360k + 13)(1200k + 41)
but it seems unlikely that this approach will lead to a proof that there are in nitely many
Carmichael numbers in the foreseeable future.
Let C (x) be the number of Carmichael numbers up to x. The following table gives
the number of Carmichael numbers up to various values of x:
x            C (x)       Year        Discoverer(s)
10 3           1        1910         Carmichael
104            7        1912         Carmichael
105           16
10 6          43
107          105
108          255        1938         Poulet
109          646        1975         Swift
1010        1547
2:5 10   10 2163         1980        Pomerance, Selfridge, Wagsta
1011        3605
1012        8241        1990         Jaeschke
1013       19279
1014       44706
1015 105212              1992        Pinch
This data suggests that there must indeed be in nitely many Carmichael numbers, even
o
though they remain fairly scarce all the way up to 1015. In 1949 Paul Erd}s showed quite
5
how scarce Carmichael numbers are, by proving that the sum of their reciprocals converge
7 it has since been proved that

(4)y                        C (x) x1;f1+o(1)g log log log x= log log x

o
In 1956 Erd}s took a radically di erent approach to constructing Carmichael numbers:
Earlier we noted that L = LCM p1 ; 1 : : : pk ; 1] is much smaller than n ; 1 for most
Carmichael numbers n = p1 : : : pk . However, for a typical set of primes, fp1 : : : pk g, there
is no particular reason to expect this to happen, indeed we'd expect L to be just a bit
smaller than n ; 1. So to construct Carmichael numbers we must nd some way of forcing
L to be small. In our constructions above (like (3)), we selected our primes p to have
certain special forms: this guaranteed that the p ; 1 had large common divisors, forcing L
to be small compared to n ; 1. Erd}s approached this problem from the other direction.
o
Instead of choosing primes in special ways so as to force L to be small, he chose L so
that there are many primes p for which p ; 1 divides L. Once this is done, one need only
nd a subset of these primes, say p1 p2 : : : pk , for which n = p1p2 : : : pk 1 (mod L),
to obtain the Carmichael number n | one sees that n is a Carmichael number, by using
Korselt's criterion, since n is squarefree, and each pi ; 1 divides L, which divides n ; 1.
Let's review
o
Erd}s's construction of Carmichael numbers
(i) Select integer L
(ii) Determine primes p for which p ; 1 divides L, but p does not divide L
(iii) Find a subset of the primes obtained in (ii) whose product is 1 (mod L).
This product is a Carmichael number.
As an example, let's try (i) L = 120. The primes p which do not divide 120, but for which
p ; 1 does, are (ii) 7, 11, 13, 31, 41, 61. Checking through all subsets of these primes we
nd that (iii) 41041 = 7 11 13 41 1 mod 120, and 172081 = 7 13 31 61 1
mod 120, and 852841 = 11 31 41 61 1 mod 120, so that 41041, 172081 and 852841
are all Carmichael numbers.
With bigger, highly composite, values of L, we expect to nd many more Carmichael
numbers. Indeed if we obtain r di erent primes in step (ii) above, then there are 2r ; 1
distinct products of non-trivial subsets of these primes. It seems plausible that roughly
1=L of these products are 1 (mod L), and so we would have approximately 2r =L
7 unlike the primes, whose sum of reciprocals diverge.
yFor those not accustomed to such estimates, this is larger than x1; for any xed
> 0, but smaller than any given positive constant times x, once x is su ciently large.
6
Carmichael numbers so formed. It can be shown that if L is the product of all the primes
up to some su ciently large point, then we can obtain more than 2 log3 L primes in (ii),
and so we'd expect more than Llog2 L such Carmichael numbers. Erd}s gave a similarly
o
reasoned argument to justify his conjecture that for any xed > 0, there are more than
x1; Carmichael numbers up to x, once x is large enough 8.
However we see from our table above that the Carmichael numbers remain scarce all
o
the way up to 1015, which is surprising if Erd}s's conjecture is to be believed. Indeed Dan
Shanks, in his book Solved and Unsolved problems in number theory, challenged those
who believe Erd}s's conjecture to produce a value of x for which there are more than x1=2
o
Carmichael numbers up to x. (Note that up to x = 1015, there are only a few more than
x1=3 Carmichael numbers.)
o
It is important to note that Erd}s's construction is impractical, both theoretically
and computationally, if one doesn't know how to nd products, of the primes produced
in (ii), which are 1 (mod L), as required for (iii). At the beginning of this year,
there were fewer than ten thousand Carmichael numbers known, and it seemed to be a
very di cult task to nd many more. Then, suddenly on January 21st, `Red' Alford
announced that he had proven the existence of at least 2128 Carmichael numbers ! Unlike
previous computations, which had sought all the Carmichael numbers up to some pre-
assigned limit, or had found many in certain sequences (such as in that given by (3)),
o
Alford modi ed Erd}s's construction so as to make it computationally practical: As we've
already discussed, it is easy (computationally) to implement steps (i) and (ii) above, but
how can we nd subsets of the primes in (ii) whose product is 1 mod L ? Here's Alford's
idea:
(iiia) Find a subset P of the primes in (ii), such that for every a 1 a L with gcd(a L) =
1, there is a subset p1 : : : pk of P for which p1p2 : : : pk a (mod L)
(iiib) Let Q be the primes found in (ii), excluding those belonging to P . For any subset
q1 : : : qr of these primes, let a be that integer, 1 a L, which is (q1 q2 : : : qr );1
(mod L). From (iiia) we know that there is a subset p1 : : : pk of P for which
p1 : : : pk a (q1 : : : qr );1 (mod L), and so p1 : : : pk q1 : : : qr 1 (mod L). There-
fore, by Erd}s's construction, p1 : : : pk q1 : : : qr is a Carmichael number.
o
Thus, for each di erent non-trivial subset of Q we've constructed a di erent Carmichael
number, providing a total of at least 2jQj ; 1 Carmichael numbers. This method is very
practical, since we don't need to explicitly write down the Carmichael numbers constructed
in (iiib) to be guaranteed of their existence all we need know is that there is some product
8 and, taking his argument to its limit, one expects C (x) to be approximately the size
of the function in (4)
7
of the primes in P in the congruence class (q1 q2 : : : qr );1 (mod L) corresponding to each
subset q1 : : : qr of Q.
It remains to nd a suitable set P in (iiia). To do this, suppose that the primes found
in (ii) were p1 < p2 < : : : < pm , and de ne Rj to be the set of products (mod L) of
the subsets of p1 p2 : : : pj . We easily obtain Rj+1 from Rj by observing that Rj+1 =
Rj frpj+1 (mod L) : r 2 Rj g. Once we nd j for which Rj is the set of all residue
classes a (mod L) with 1 a L and (a L) = 1, then we can take P = Rj and we're
done.
Alford worked with the example (i) L = 26 33 52 72 11, and found that there are
(ii) 155 primes p 13 such that p ; 1 divides L. By computing R1 R2 : : : as above he
got (iiia) P = R27 , that is that every residue class a (mod L) with (a L) = 1 is given by
the product of some subset of the smallest 27 primes found in (ii). Thus if Q is the set of
the largest 128(= 155 ; 27) primes found in (ii) then, as described above, each subset of Q
corresponds to a Carmichael number, and we've proved the existence of at least 2128 ; 1
Carmichael numbers.
So, in an afternoon's work, Alford increased the number of Carmichael numbers known
from fewer than 214 , to more than 2128. Certain faculty members, here at the University of
Georgia, taunted the number theory group that there cannot be interesting nite sets which
contain more than 2128 elements, and that surely Alford's idea should provide su cient
impetus to nally prove that there are in nitely many Carmichael numbers. And indeed
it did. The theorem that we eventually proved is
Theorem. (Alford, Granville, Pomerance { 1992): There are more than x2=7 Carmichael
numbers up to x, once x is su ciently large.
o
To make Erd}s's construction theoretically practical, one evidently needs a result
which guarantees that, given enough primes satisfying (ii), there is some subset whose
product is 1 (mod L). A theorem of van Emde Boas and Kruyswijk implies that if
m > 2 is the largest order of an element of the multiplicative group modulo L, then such
a subset exists provided there are more than m log L primes satisfying (ii). A theorem of
Prachar guarantees the existence of integers L for which there are more than Lc= log log L
primes p satisfying (ii) however this quantity is usually a lot smaller than m log L. To avoid
this di culty one wishes to select L so that m is very small, but Prachar's construction
doesn't allow this. So instead we showed the existence of integers L of the form L0 k with
(L0 k) = 1, where the maximal order m0 of an element modulo L0 is extremely small, and
there are more than m0 log L primes p satisfying (ii), each with the additional property
that p 1 (mod k). The result of van Emde Boas and Kruyswijk then guarantees
the existence of a subset of these primes whose product is 1(mod L0 ) and, since any
such product is 1 (mod k) (as each such prime is 1 (mod k)), thus this product is 1
(mod L), and so a Carmichael number, from Erd}s's construction.
o
8
Filling in the details of this outline involves some deep tools from analytic number
theory, as well as combinatorial techniques involving groups and sets. This will all be
described in detail in a forthcoming journal article.
One ingredient needed for the proof is a lower bound for the number of primes in
certain arithmetic progressions: As is well known, there are asymptotically x= log x primes
up to x, and we expect these to be more-or-less equally distributed amongst the arithmetic
progressions a (mod d) with (a d) = 1, provided d is a little smaller than x. Currently it
is only known how to prove such a result if d is considerably smaller than x, in fact smaller
than a xed power of log x. However, for our purposes, we proved
Fix > 0. If x is su ciently large then for all, but a few 9 , integers d x5=12; there
are more than x=2d log x primes x in the arithmetic progression 1 (mod d).
It is widely believed that such a result holds for any d x1; . If true this implies Erd}s'so
conjecture, for we also proved
Theorem. (Alford, Granville, Pomerance { 1992): Fix > 0. Assume that, for su ciently
large x, the arithmetic progression 1 (mod d) contains more than x=2d log x primes up
to x provided d x1; . Then there are more than x1;2 Carmichael numbers up to x,
once x is su ciently large.
o
This Theorem seems to guarantee that Erd}s's conjecture is correct. So, in answer to
Shanks's challenge to nd an x for which C (x) > x1=2 , one can extrapolate our tabulated
values of log C (x)= log x to guess that one needs x to be around 1060 | it wouldn't be
feasible to write down all the Carmichael numbers up to this point !!
So what does all this tell us about primality tests ? Although there are various methods
known that will verify that a given number is prime in a `small' number of steps (thanks
to Miller, Goldwasser and Kilian, Adleman and Huang, and others), they all consist of
checking a large number of conditions (polynomial in the number of digits of n). It would
be more elegant if one only needed to check a nite number of such conditions, but it now
seems unlikely that any such method proposed thus far will work.
In particular, there are various widely-used software packages that assert that a given
integer is prime if it is a `strong pseudoprime' for some given nite set of bases. However
we can prove that, for any given nite set of bases, there are in nitely many Carmichael
numbers that are `strong pseudoprimes' to all the bases in that set. Such numbers would
be falsely identi ed as prime by such a software packages, so reader, beware !

9 A precise description of `but a few' is: There exists an integer c (depending only on
) such that there is a set B of no more than c integers, each > log x, such that we must
miss out all those d above that are divisible by an element of B.
9

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