Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised Jun 29, 2026

Jacobsthal sum

In mathematics, Jacobsthal sums are finite sums of Legendre symbols related to Gauss sums. They were introduced by Jacobsthal.

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Jun 29, 2026
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In mathematics, Jacobsthal sums are finite sums of Legendre symbols related to Gauss sums. They were introduced by Jacobsthal (1907).

Definition

The Jacobsthal sum is given by

ϕ n ( a ) = m mod p ( m ( m n + a ) p ) {\displaystyle \phi _{n}(a)=\sum _{m{\bmod {p}}}\left({\dfrac {m(m^{n}+a)}{p}}\right)}

where p is prime and () is the Legendre symbol.

References

References

Further reading

Further reading