The half-factorial residue distribution conjecture for primes congruent to 3 modulo 4

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Let pp be a prime with p≡3(mod4)p \equiv 3 \pmod 4. Consider the proportion, among such primes, for which

(p−12)!≡1(modp).\left(\frac{p-1}{2}\right)! \equiv 1 \pmod p.

Half-factorial residue distribution conjecture. This proportion approaches 12\frac{1}{2} as p→∞p \to \infty.

Numerical evidence motivates the conjecture. It is related to the parity of the number of quadratic non-residues below p/2p/2 and has been recast in terms of the class number of Q(−p)\mathbb Q(\sqrt{-p}), but no proof is known.

References

Primary source

Joel Beeren, David Harvey and Tim Trudgian, “An incomplete variant of Wilson's congruence”, arXiv:1310.2691 (2013).

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