Bounds on the least quadratic nonresidue

Seminar: 
Algebra and Number Theory Seminar
Event time: 
Tuesday, October 28, 2014 - 12:30pm to Monday, October 27, 2014 - 8:00pm
Location: 
LOM 205
Speaker: 
Leo Goldmakher
Speaker affiliation: 
Williams College
Event description: 

Attaining strong bounds on the least quadratic nonresidue (mod p) is a classical problem, with a history stretching back to Gauss. The approach which has led to the strongest results uses character sums, objects which are ubiquitous in analytic number theory. I will discuss character sums, their connection to the least nonresidue, and some recent work of myself and J. Bober (University of Bristol) on a promising new approach to the problem. The talk will be accessible to a broad mathematical audience.