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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 November 2016
A lattice walk with all steps having the same length $d$ is called a
$d$-walk. Denote by
${\mathcal{T}}_{d}$ the terminal set, that is, the set of all lattice points that can be reached from the origin by means of a
$d$-walk. We examine some geometric and algebraic properties of the terminal set. After observing that
$({\mathcal{T}}_{d},+)$ is a normal subgroup of the group
$(\mathbb{Z}^{N},+)$, we ask questions about the quotient group
$\mathbb{Z}^{N}/{\mathcal{T}}_{d}$ and give the number of elements of
$\mathbb{Z}^{2}/{\mathcal{T}}_{d}$ in terms of
$d$. To establish this result, we use several consequences of Fermat’s theorem about representations of prime numbers of the form
$4k+1$ as the sum of two squares. One of the consequences is the fact, observed by Sierpiński, that every natural power of such a prime number has exactly one relatively prime representation. We provide explicit formulas for the relatively prime integers in this representation.