Simultaneous insolvability of exponential congruences

Abstract

We determine a necessary and sufficient condition for the infinitude of primes $p$ such that none of the equations $a_i^x \equiv b_i \pmod{p}, 1 \le i \le n,$ are solvable. We control the insolvability of $a^x \equiv b \pmod{p}$ by power residues for multiplicatively independent $a$ and $b$, and by divisibilities and, most importantly, parities of orders in multiplicatively dependent cases. We also consider a more general problem concerning divisibilities of orders. The problems are motivated by Artin's primitive root conjecture and its variants.