Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /1247 of 1394

, 2022

Geometry Difficulty 5.9 AIME, harder Prove it United States

Problem:
Let (x1,y1),(x2,y2),(x3,y3),(x4,y4)(x_{1}, y_{1}),(x_{2}, y_{2}),(x_{3}, y_{3}),(x_{4}, y_{4}), and (x5,y5)(x_{5}, y_{5}) be the vertices of a regular pentagon centered at (0,0)(0,0). Compute the product of all positive integers kk such that the equality
x1k+x2k+x3k+x4k+x5k=y1k+y2k+y3k+y4k+y5k x_{1}^{k}+x_{2}^{k}+x_{3}^{k}+x_{4}^{k}+x_{5}^{k}=y_{1}^{k}+y_{2}^{k}+y_{3}^{k}+y_{4}^{k}+y_{5}^{k}
must hold for all possible choices of the pentagon.
Proposed by: Daniel Zhu

Solution

Solution:
Without loss of generality let the vertices of the pentagon lie on the unit circle. Then, if f(θ)=cos(θ)kf(\theta)=\cos (\theta)^{k} and g(θ)=j=04f(θ+2jπ/5)g(\theta)=\sum_{j=0}^{4} f(\theta+2 j \pi / 5), the condition becomes g(θ)=g(π/2θ)g(\theta)=g(\pi / 2-\theta), or g(θ)=g(θ+π/2)g(\theta)=g(\theta+\pi / 2), since gg is an odd function.

Write fgf \asymp g if f=cgf=c g for some nonzero constant cc that we don't care about. Since cosθeiθ+eiθ\cos \theta \asymp e^{i \theta}+e^{-i \theta}, we find that
f(θ)Z(kk+2)eiθ f(\theta) \asymp \sum_{\ell \in \mathbb{Z}}\binom{k}{\frac{k+\ell}{2}} e^{i \ell \theta}
where (ab)\binom{a}{b} is defined to be zero if bb is not an integer in the interval [0,a][0, a]. It is also true that
j=04ei(θ+2jπ/5)={5eiθ50 else  \sum_{j=0}^{4} e^{i \ell(\theta+2 j \pi / 5)}= \begin{cases}5 e^{i \theta} & 5 \mid \ell \\ 0 & \text{ else }\end{cases}
so
g(θ)5Z(kk+2)eiθ g(\theta) \asymp \sum_{\ell \in 5 \mathbb{Z}}\binom{k}{\frac{k+\ell}{2}} e^{i \ell \theta}
This is periodic with period π/2\pi / 2 if and only if all terms with \ell not a multiple of 4 are equal to 0. However, we know that the nonzero terms are exactly the \ell that (1) are multiples of 55, (2) are of the same parity as kk, and (3) satisfy k|\ell| \leq k. Hence, if kk is even, the condition is satisfied if and only if k<10k<10 (else the =10\ell=10 term is nonzero), and if kk is odd, the condition is satisfied if and only if k<5k<5 (else the =5\ell=5 term is nonzero). Our final answer is 123468=11521 \cdot 2 \cdot 3 \cdot 4 \cdot 6 \cdot 8=1152.

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Source: MathNet, licensed CC-BY-4.0. Statement reproduced verbatim; metadata (topic, difficulty) added by this project.