THE UNIVERSAL KUMMER CONGRUENCES

Abstract

AbstractLet $p$ be a prime. In this paper, we present a detailed $p$-adic analysis on factorials and double factorials and their congruences. We give good bounds for the $p$-adic sizes of the coefficients of the divided universal Bernoulli number ${B}_{n} / n$ when $n$ is divisible by $p- 1$. Using these, we then establish the universal Kummer congruences modulo powers of a prime $p$ for the divided universal Bernoulli numbers ${B}_{n} / n$ when $n$ is divisible by $p- 1$.