Linear Congruences and a Conjecture of Bibak

Abstract

We address three questions posed by Bibak \cite{KB20}, and generalize some results of Bibak, Lehmer and K G Ramanathan on solutions of linear congruences $\sum_{i=1}^k a_i x_i \equiv b \Mod{n}$. In particular, we obtain explicit expressions for the number of solutions where $x_i$'s are squares modulo $n$. In addition, we obtain expressions for the number of solutions with order restrictions $x_1 \geq \cdots \geq x_k$ or, with strict order restrictions $x_1> \cdots > x_k$ in some special cases. In these results, the expressions for the number of solutions involve Ramanujan sums and are obtained using their properties.