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Number theory Difficulty 5.7 AIME, harder Prove it Saudi Arabia

Let pp, qq be two different odd prime numbers and nn an integer such that pqp q divides npq+1n^{p q} + 1. Prove that if p3q3p^{3} q^{3} divides npq+1n^{p q} + 1 then either p2p^{2} divides n+1n + 1 or q2q^{2} divides n+1n + 1.

Solution

Because pqp q divides npq+1n^{p q} + 1, neither pp nor qq divides nn.
Assume p<qp < q. We have from Fermat's little theorem
0npq+1nq+1(modp). 0 \equiv n^{p q} + 1 \equiv n^{q} + 1 \quad (\bmod p).
Therefore n2q1(modp)n^{2 q} \equiv 1 (\bmod p). But np11(modp)n^{p-1} \equiv 1 (\bmod p) and gcd(p1,q)=1\gcd(p-1, q) = 1, since p1<qp-1 < q and qq is prime. We deduce that n21(modp)n^{2} \equiv 1 (\bmod p) and hence pp divides n+1n + 1.
Let n+1=apn + 1 = a p for an integer aa. We have
npq1npq2+n+1i=0pq1(1ap)ii=0pq1(1iap)pqpq12ap2qpq≢0(modp2). \begin{aligned} n^{p q - 1} - n^{p q - 2} + \cdots - n + 1 &\equiv \sum_{i=0}^{p q - 1} (1 - a p)^{i} \equiv \sum_{i=0}^{p q - 1} (1 - i a p) \\ &\equiv p q - \frac{p q - 1}{2} a p^{2} q \equiv p q \not\equiv 0 \quad \left(\bmod p^{2}\right). \end{aligned}
Therefore p2p^{2} does not divide npq1npq2+n+1n^{p q - 1} - n^{p q - 2} + \cdots - n + 1 and since p3p^{3} divides
npq+1=(n+1)(npq1npq2+n+1), n^{p q} + 1 = (n + 1) \left(n^{p q - 1} - n^{p q - 2} + \cdots - n + 1\right),
then p2p^{2} divides n+1n + 1.

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