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2020/97/1-2 (10) — DOI: 10.5486/PMD.2020.8768 — pp. 161-180

New congruences on multiple harmonic sums and Bernoulli numbers

Authors: Liuquan Wang

Abstract:

Let ${\mathcal{P}_{n}}$ denote the set of positive integers which are prime to $n$. Let $B_{n}$ be the $n$-th Bernoulli number. For any prime $p\ge 11$ and integer $r\ge 2$, we prove that $$ \sum\limits_{\begin{smallmatrix}{{l}_{1}}+{{l}_{2}}+\cdots+{{l}_{6}}={{p}^{r}}\\{{l}_{1}},\dots,{{l}_{6}}\in{\mathcal{P}_{p}} \end{smallmatrix}}{\frac{1}{{{l}_{1}}{{l}_{2}}{{l}_{3}}{{l}_{4}}{{l}_{5}}{l}_{6}}}\equiv-\frac{{5!}}{18}p^{r-1}B_{p-3}^{2}\pmod{{{p}^{r}}}. $$ This extends a family of curious congruences. We also obtain other interesting congruences involving multiple harmonic sums and Bernoulli numbers.

Keywords: congruences, Bernoulli numbers, multiple harmonic sums

Mathematics Subject Classification: 11B68, 11A07, 11A41, 11M32