TITLE: Prime Appearances in Fibonacci Number Factorizations
QUESTION [6 upvotes]: Okay, THIS one is considerably more analytical... :P
(Used my post here as a basis.)
When successive Fibonacci numbers are factored, the primes appear in a specific order, which goes
$2, 3, 5, 13, 7, 17, 11, \dots$
(repeated factors are not included, such as the 2s in 8, the 3 in 21, the 2 in 34, and the 5 in 55).
Some primes don't appear until $F_{p}$, where $p$ is the prime. The list starts off
$2, 3, 7, 23, 43, 67, \dots$
(Edit: Thanks to Gerry and Qiaochu for the correction.)
I shall call these "First Prime Appearances", or FPAs for short. So therefore, the 5th FPA is 43.
My question is thus: what is the density of the FPA primes relative to all primes?

REPLY [5 votes]: Building on Qiaochu Yuan's answer, the problem is not to check that $\alpha = -\phi^2$ behaves like a primitive root, but to check that it has no more $n$th roots in $\mathbb{F}_{p^2}$, other than the ones given by its $(p-1)$th root.
Actually, you have already proved the partial result $\alpha$ has exactly enough nested square roots if and only if $p = 3 \mod 4$, so with probability $\frac{1}{2}$.
If $n$ is not a multiple of $2$ or $5$, pick a primitive $n$th root of unity $\zeta_n$, and we can look at the extension $\mathbb{Q} \subset \mathbb{Q}(\alpha,\zeta_n,\beta = \sqrt[n]\alpha)$ 
For any prime not dividing $n$, and different from $2$ or $5$,
denote by $\sigma$ the Frobenius morphism.
Chebotarev's theorem implies that the density of the primes for any possible action of $\sigma$ is always the same ($\frac1{2n\varphi(n)}$) :
$\sigma(\alpha) = \alpha^\epsilon$ with $\epsilon = \pm 1$
$\sigma(\zeta_n) = \zeta_n^{p \mod n}$ (this is Dirichlet's theorem)
$\sigma(\beta) = \zeta_n^k \beta^\epsilon : \sigma(\sigma(\beta)\beta^{-\epsilon})^n = \sigma(\alpha^{\epsilon-\epsilon}) = 1$, so $\sigma(\beta)\beta^{-\epsilon} = \zeta_n^k $ for some $k \in \mathbb{Z}/n\mathbb{Z}$.
Then for any divisor $d$ of $n$, the $d$th roots of $\alpha$ in $\mathbb{F}_{p^2}$ are the $\rho_i = (\zeta^i\beta)^{n/d}$ such that $\rho_i = \sigma\sigma(\rho_i) $.
But
$$ \sigma\sigma(\rho_i^{n/d}) = \sigma\sigma(\zeta_n^{in/d}\beta^{n/d}) =\sigma(\zeta_n^{(pi+k)n/d}\beta^{-n/d}) = \zeta_n^{(p^2i+(p-1)k)n/d}\beta^{n/d} = \zeta_n^{(p-1)((p+1)i+k)n/d} \rho_i$$
So it was equivalent to $(p-1)((p+1)i+k)n/d = 0 \mod n$, which is also $(p-1)((p+1)i+k) = 0 \mod d$ :
The number of $d$th roots in the number of classes $i$ mod $d$ such that $(p-1)((p+1)i+k) = 0 \mod d$
This agrees with what we know, for example when $d$ is prime, if $p = 1 \mod d$, then since $\alpha$ has $(p-1)$th roots, it has $d$th roots ; if $p \neq \pm 1 \mod d$, then $x \mapsto x^d$ is a permutation of $\mathbb{F}_{p^2}$ so we can always find exactly one root ; and if $p = -1 \mod d$ then it has $d$th roots if and only if $k=0 \mod d$, which happens 1/d of the time.
The point of having a generic $n$ instead of a prime is that it tells us having $q$th roots is "independant" of having a $q'$th roots for coprime $q$ and $q'$.
Now we can say that for primes $p$ other than $2$ or $5$:

with probability $\frac12$, $\alpha \notin \mathbb{F}_{p^2}$ and $p$ is therefore disqualified from being a PFA.

The other $\frac{1}{2}$ is split independantly for all primes $q$ other than $2$ or $5$ :

with probability $\frac1{(q-1)}$, if $p = 1 \mod q$ and $\alpha$ has $q$th roots in $\mathbb{F}_{p^2}$.
with probability $1-\frac2{q-1}$, $p^2 \neq \pm 1 \mod q$ and $\alpha$ has one $q$th root in $\mathbb{F}_{p^2}$.
with probability $\frac1q$, $p = -1 \mod q$ and $\alpha$ has no $q$th root in $\mathbb{F}_{p^2}$.
with probability $\frac1{q(q-1)}$, $p = -1 \mod q$ and $\alpha$ has $q$th roots in $\mathbb{F}_{p^2}$, and $p$ is therefore disqualified from being a PFA.
for $q=5$, there is no obstruction to being a PFA
for $q=2$, $p$ is not a PFA with probability $\frac12$

Thus I expect the density of PFA to be precisely $\frac{10}{19} \Pi (1-\frac1{p(p-1)})$ where $p$ ranges over all primes.