Maths Olympiad Prep

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Number theory Difficulty 5.5 AIME, harder Prove it Hong Kong

Find all pairs (a,b)(a, b) of integers aa and bb satisfying
(b2+11(ab))2=a3b. (b^2 + 11(a-b))^2 = a^3 b.

Solution

(Belarus MO 2014 Category B Problem 2 modified) The only solutions are (a,b)=(t,t),(0,11)(a, b) = (t, t), (0, 11) where tt is any integer.
We have
(b2+11(ab))2=a3bb4+22b2(ab)+121(ab)2=a3b(ab)(121(ab)+22b2b(a2+ab+b2))=0. \begin{aligned} (b^2 + 11(a-b))^2 &= a^3b \\ \Leftrightarrow \quad b^4 + 22b^2(a-b) + 121(a-b)^2 &= a^3b \\ \Leftrightarrow \quad (a-b)(121(a-b) + 22b^2 - b(a^2 + ab + b^2)) &= 0. \end{aligned}
When a=ba = b, the equation always holds. Now we may assume aba \neq b. It remains to solve 121(ab)+22b2b(a2+ab+b2)=0121(a-b) + 22b^2 - b(a^2 + ab + b^2) = 0. This means
baa2+(b2121)a+b(b11)2=0.(1) baa^2 + (b^2 - 121)a + b(b - 11)^2 = 0. \quad (1)
If b=0b=0, we have a=0a=0, which is a contradiction. If b0b \neq 0, this is a quadratic equation in aa. The discriminant is
Δ=(b2121)24b2(b11)2=(b11)3(3b+11). \Delta = (b^2 - 121)^2 - 4b^2(b - 11)^2 = -(b - 11)^3(3b + 11).
When b=11b=11, the equation (1) becomes 11a2=011a^2 = 0. The only solution is a=0a=0. When b11b \neq 11, we need (b11)(3b+11)0-(b-11)(3b+11) \ge 0. This implies b=3,2,,10b = -3, -2, \dots, 10. Note that Δ\Delta should be a perfect square since aa is an integer. We check the value of c=(b11)(3b+11)c = -(b-11)(3b+11) one by one as follows.

b-3-2-112345678910
c2865961401531601611561451281057641

None of these is a perfect square. Therefore, the only solutions are a=ba=b and (a,b)=(0,11)(a, b) = (0, 11).

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