On primitive roots for Carlitz modules

Let be the polynomial ring over a finite field. We prove that for every element a of a global -field of finite -characteristic the set of places for which a is a primitive root under the Carlitz action possesses a Dirichlet density. We also give a criterion for this density to be positive. This is an analogue of Bilharz’ version of the primitive roots conjecture of Artin, with replaced by the Carlitz module.     

Pseudovarieties defining classes of sofic subshifts closed under taking shift equivalent subshifts

For a pseudovariety of ordered semigroups, let be the class of sofic subshifts whose syntactic semigroup lies in . It is proved that if contains then is closed under taking shift equivalent subshifts, and conversely, if is closed under taking conjugate subshifts then contains and . Almost finite type subshifts are characterized as the irreducible elements of , which gives a new proof that the class of almost finite type subshifts is closed under taking shift equivalent subshifts.