Saturday, 4 July 2026

Exercise (6.4).21

Solve the non-linear Diophantine equation

$$ x^6 = 1 + 13y $$


The solutions for $x$ are the solutions to the congruence

$$ x^6 \equiv 1 \pmod {13} $$


We know 2 is a primitive root of prime 13. The following is a table of indices.

ind_2 (a)a = 2^ind_r(a) mod 13
12
24
38
43
56
612
711
89
95
1010
117
121


Applying Propoositions (6.15) and (6.16) to $ x^6 \equiv 1 \pmod 13 $ gives

$$ 6 \times \text{ind}_2(x \equiv 0 \pmod {12} $$

Since $g=\gcd(12,6)=6$ divides 0, the linear congruence has solutions, and in fact gas $g=6$ incongruent solutions modulo 12.

Dividing by 6 gives

$$ \text{ind}_2(x) \equiv 0 \pmod 2 $$

This gives us $\text{ind}_2(x) \equiv 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 \pmod {12}$. Using the table of indices above gives us

$$ x \equiv 1, 3, 4,  9, 10, 12 \pmod {13} $$

Using $y=\frac{x^6-1}{13}$ gives us the corresponding values for $y$, and so the solutions are

$$ (x,y) \quad = \quad (1,0), \; (3,56), \; (4,315), \; (9,40880), \; (10,76923), \; (12,229691)   $$