Non-residues and primitive roots in Beatty sequences

Abstract

We study multiplicative character sums taken on the values of a non-homogeneous Beatty sequence where α,β ∈ ℝ, and α is irrational. In particular, our bounds imply that for every fixed ε > 0, if p is sufficiently large and p½+ε ≤ N ≤ p, then among the first N elements of ℬα,β, there are N/2+o(N) quadratic non-residues modulo p. When more information is available about the Diophantine properties of α, then the error term o(N) admits a sharper estimate.