Computational aspects of rational residuosity

Abstract: In this paper, we consider an extension of Jacobi's symbol, the so called rational $2^k$-th power residue symbol. In Section 3, we prove a novel generalization of Zolotarev's lemma. In Sections 4, 5 and 6, we show that several hard computational problems are polynomial-time reducible to computing these residue symbols, such as getting nontrivial information about factors of semiprime numbers. We also derive criteria concerning the Quadratic Residuosity Problem.