Maths Olympiad Prep

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, 2014

Number theory Difficulty 7.9 National Olympiad, round 2 Prove it Germany

Problem:
Determine all pairs (x,y)(x, y) of integers which satisfy the equation
7x213xy+7y23=xy+1 \sqrt[3]{7 x^{2}-13 x y+7 y^{2}} = |x-y| + 1

Solution

Solution:
Equation (1) is symmetric in xx and yy, so that we may first assume xyx \geq y and obtain, for every solution (x,y)(x, y) with xyx \neq y, also (y,x)(y, x) as a solution. With
d=xy0d = x - y \geq 0 it follows that 7d2+xy3=d+1\sqrt[3]{7 d^{2} + x y} = d + 1. Raising to a power gives x2dx+(d3+4d23d1)=0x^{2} - d x + \left(-d^{3} + 4 d^{2} - 3 d - 1\right) = 0 with discriminant D=d24(d3+4d23d1)=(d2)2(4d+1)0D = d^{2} - 4\left(-d^{3} + 4 d^{2} - 3 d - 1\right) = (d-2)^{2}(4 d + 1) \geq 0. Thus x1/2=d±(d2)4d+12x_{1/2} = \frac{d \pm (d-2) \sqrt{4 d + 1}}{2}. For xx to be an integer, 4d+14 d + 1 must be a perfect square, and in fact the square of an odd number. The ansatz 4d+1=(2m+1)24 d + 1 = (2 m + 1)^{2} with m{0;1;2;}m \in \{0; 1; 2; \ldots\} gives d=m2+md = m^{2} + m, so that we obtain x1/2=12[(m2+m)±(m2+m2)(2m+1)]x_{1/2} = \frac{1}{2}\left[\left(m^{2} + m\right) \pm \left(m^{2} + m - 2\right)(2 m + 1)\right]. This leads to (x1,y1)=(m3+2m2m1,m3+m22m1)\left(x_{1}, y_{1}\right) = \left(m^{3} + 2 m^{2} - m - 1, m^{3} + m^{2} - 2 m - 1\right) and, for m1m \neq 1, to (x2,y2)=(m3m2+2m+1,m32m2+m+1)\left(x_{2}, y_{2}\right) = \left(-m^{3} - m^{2} + 2 m + 1, -m^{3} - 2 m^{2} + m + 1\right) and the solutions (y1,x1)\left(y_{1}, x_{1}\right) resp. (y2,x2)\left(y_{2}, x_{2}\right) for m>0m > 0. A check confirms that these pairs are indeed solutions.

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Source: MathNet, licensed CC-BY-4.0. Statement translated into English from de; metadata (topic, difficulty) added by this project.