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José Hdz. Stgo.
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The $1/3 + \varepsilon$ is not a barrier anymore!

Resorting to estimates of exponential sums over subgroups due to Shrkedov and Shteinikov, J. Cilleruelo and M. Garaev proved in their paper "On the congruence $x^{x} \equiv 1 \pmod{p}$" (PAMS, 144 (2016), no. 6, pp. 2411 - 2418) the following result:

Let $J(p)$ denote the number of solutions to the congruence $$x^{x} \equiv 1 \pmod{p}, \quad 1 \leq x \leq p-1.$$ Then, for any $\varepsilon>0$, there exists $c:=c(\varepsilon)>0$ such that $J(p) < c \, p^{27/82 + \varepsilon}$.

This theorem may well be the state of the art on this problem...

José Hdz. Stgo.
  • 8.8k
  • 4
  • 68
  • 106