Structure of Pseudorandom Numbers Derived from Fermat Quotients

We study the distribution of s-dimensional points of Fermat quotients modulo p with arbitrary lags. If no lags coincide modulo p the same technique as in [21] works. However, there are some interesting twists in the other case. We prove a discrepancy bound which is unconditional for s = 2 and needs restrictions on the lags for s > 2. We apply this bound to derive results on the pseudorandomness of the binary threshold sequence derived from Fermat quotients in terms of bounds on the well-distribution measure and the correlation measure of order 2, both introduced by Mauduit and Sarkozy. We also prove a lower bound on its linear complexity profile. The proofs are based on bounds on exponential sums and earlier relations between discrepancy and both measures above shown by Mauduit, Niederreiter and Sarkozy. Moreover, we analyze the lattice structure of Fermat quotients modulo p with arbitrary lags.