Find all primes such that there exist integers and satisfying and .
Saudi Arabian Mathematical Competitions
Solution
If then is a prime, which is impossible. Similar case happens when . So we may assume . Then and . Note that
So the problem statement is equivalent to
Since and is prime, then , so . We have two cases:
1. If then which means . This is impossible, since and are integers and non-negative.
2. If then we get . So we conclude .
By case work we get 3 solutions as follows:
- when ,
- when ,
- when .
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