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Number theory Difficulty 6.1 National olympiad Prove it Ukraine

Given two distinct natural numbers aa and bb greater than 11,

a) Prove that there are infinitely many natural numbers nn such that sn=an+bn+1s_n = a^n + b^{n+1} is composite.

b) Prove that there are infinitely many prime numbers pp such that sns_n is divisible by pp for some nn.

Solution

a) If sn=ps_n = p is prime for some nn larger than aa and bb, then for some kk and ll the numbers ak1a^k - 1 and bl1b^l - 1 are divisible by pp. If we set m=klm = kl, then both amt1a^{mt} - 1 and bmt1b^{mt} - 1 are divisible by pp for all natural numbers tt. This implies that the number
sn+mt=an+mt+bn+1+mt=an+bn+an(amt1)+bn+1(bmt1) s_{n+mt} = a^{n+mt} + b^{n+1+mt} = a^n + b^n + a^n(a^{mt} - 1) + b^{n+1}(b^{mt} - 1)
is divisible by pp for all tt, which gives an infinite amount of composite members in the sequence of sns_n.

b) All prime divisors of sns_n either divide both aa and bb or none of them.
Let qq be a common prime divisor of aa and bb, and qkq^k and qlq^l are the largest powers of qq that are divisors for aa and bb respectively. If klk \le l then kn<l(n+1)kn < l(n+1), and if k>lk > l then kn>l(n+1)kn > l(n+1) for all large enough nn. Therefore, for sufficiently large nn, the prime divisor qq raised to one of the powers knkn or l(n+1)l(n+1) divides sns_n, implying that the greatest common divisor of ana^n and bn+1b^{n+1} cannot be larger than dn+1d^{n+1}, where d=(a,b)d = (a, b) – GCD of aa and bb.
Let pp be a prime number dividing neither aa nor bb. Let pkp^k be the largest power of pp that is divisor of b+1b+1 (maybe, k=0k=0). For some natural number mm both am1a^m - 1 and bm1b^m - 1 are divisible by pk+1p^{k+1}. Then, for some nn divisible by mm, the number sn=(b+1)+(an1)+b(bn1)s_n = (b+1) + (a^n - 1) + b(b^n - 1) is divisible by pp raised to the same power as b+1b+1.
Now we can finally get back to the original problem. For the sake of contradiction, we assume that there are only finitely many primes dividing some sns_n. In particular, this means that there are only finitely many prime numbers p1,p2,,pjp_1, p_2, \dots, p_j which do not divide aa or bb, but divide sns_n for some nn.
We have just shown that for all such pip_i there is mim_i such that for all nn divisible by mim_i, the largest number, such that pip_i raised to the power of this number is a divisor of, sns_n is smaller than the largest number, such that pip_i raised to the power of this number, is a divisor of b+1b+1.
However, if we now choose nn divisible by all mim_i, then we will get that sn=an+bn+1s_n = a^n + b^{n+1} is not greater than dn+1(b+1)d^{n+1}(b+1). However, this cannot be the case for all nn because of the fact that one of aa or bb is bigger than dd.

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