# Product of successive primes in Cunningham chain of the second kind satisfying congruence conditions is Poulet number

## Statement

Suppose  is an odd prime number such that  is also a prime number. Then, the number:



is a Poulet number (i.e., it is a Fermat pseudoprime to base 2) if and only if .

Note that the condition that  are both primes means that they are consecutive members of a Cunningham chain of the second kind.

## Particular cases

We give here the smallest few values of  such that  are both primes, and the corresponding Poulet numbers.

  Corresponding Poulet number (Fermat pseudoprime to base 2)
37 73 2701
97 193 18721
157 313 49141
229 457 104653

## Facts used

1. Fermat's little theorem
2. Euler's criterion (for quadratic residue)
3. Congruence condition for two to be a quadratic residue

## Proof

Given:  is a prime number such that  is also a prime number. Let .

To prove:  if and only if .

Proof: We have:



Thus:



We thus have:

Step no. Assertion/construction Facts used Given data used Previous steps used Explanation
1  is congruent to 1 mod , or equivalently,  is divisible by . Fact (1)  is prime The order of 2 mod p divides , which divides . More explicitly: [SHOW MORE]
2  is congruent to 1 or -1 mod , depending on whether 2 is a quadratic residue mod  (1 if it is, -1 if it isn't) Facts (1), (2)  is prime [SHOW MORE]
3  is congruent to 1 or -1 mod , with 1 iff  is congruent to 1 mod 12. Fact (3)  are primes,  is odd Step (2) [SHOW MORE]
4  is congruent to 1 mod  iff .  Steps (1), (3) Step-combination direct.