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discrete logarithm (Definition)

Let $p$ be a prime. We know that the group $G:=(\mathbb{Z}/p\mathbb{Z})^*$ is cyclic. Let $g$ be a primitive root of $G$ , i.e. $G=\{1,g,g^2,\dots,g^{p-2}\}$ . For a number $x\in G$ we want to know the unique number $0\leq n\leq p-2$ with $$x=g^n.$$ This number $n$ is called the discrete logarithm or index of $x$ to the basis $g$ and is denoted as $\operatorname{ind}_g(x)$ . For $x,y\in G$ it satisfies the following properties:

$\displaystyle \operatorname{ind}_g(xy)$ $\displaystyle =\operatorname{ind}_g(x)+\operatorname{ind}_g(y);$    
$\displaystyle \operatorname{ind}_g(x^{-1})$ $\displaystyle =-\operatorname{ind}_g(x);$    
$\displaystyle \operatorname{ind}_g(x^k)$ $\displaystyle =k\cdot\operatorname{ind}_g(x).$    

Furthermore, for a pair $g,h$ of distinct primitive roots, we also have, for any $x\in G$ :
$\displaystyle \operatorname{ind}_h(x)$ $\displaystyle =\operatorname{ind}_h(g)\cdot \operatorname{ind}_g(x);$    
$\displaystyle 1$ $\displaystyle =\operatorname{ind}_g(h)\cdot \operatorname{ind}_h(g);$    
$\displaystyle \operatorname{ind}_g(-1)$ $\displaystyle =\frac{p-1}{2}.$    

It is a difficult problem to compute the discrete logarithm, while powering is very easy. Therefore this is of some interest to cryptography.




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Cross-references: cryptography, properties, basis, logarithm, number, primitive root, cyclic, group, prime
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This is version 4 of discrete logarithm, born on 2004-12-21, modified 2008-03-08.
Object id is 6592, canonical name is DiscreteLogarithm.
Accessed 7334 times total.

Classification:
AMS MSC11A15 (Number theory :: Elementary number theory :: Power residues, reciprocity)

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