Maths Olympiad Prep

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Number theory Difficulty 8.4 Shortlist Prove it Saudi Arabia

Denote SS as the set of prime divisors of all integers of form 2n2+13n2^{n^{2}+1}-3^{n}, nZ+n \in \mathbb{Z}^{+}. Prove that SS and P\S\mathscr{P} \backslash S both contain infinitely many elements (P\mathscr{P} is the set of prime numbers).

Solution

First, suppose on the contrary that SS is finite, then S={p1,p2,,pk}S=\{p_{1}, p_{2}, \ldots, p_{k}\} for k=Sk=|S|. It is easy to check that 2,3S2,3 \notin S.

Consider number N=(p11)(p21)(pk1)N=(p_{1}-1)(p_{2}-1) \cdots (p_{k}-1) and M=2N2+13NM=2^{N^{2}+1}-3^{N}. For some pSp \in S, by Euler's theorem, we have
2p11(modp) and 3p11(modp). 2^{p-1} \equiv 1 \pmod{p} \text{ and } 3^{p-1} \equiv 1 \pmod{p}.
Then 2N2+1=22N2=2(2p1)N2p12(modp)2^{N^{2}+1}=2 \cdot 2^{N^{2}}=2 \cdot (2^{p-1})^{\frac{N^{2}}{p-1}} \equiv 2 \pmod{p} and 3N(3p1)Np11(modp)3^{N} \equiv (3^{p-1})^{\frac{N}{p-1}} \equiv 1 \pmod{p}. Hence, M21=1(modp)M \equiv 2-1=1 \pmod{p}. So by the Chinese remainder theorem, we also have M1(modN)M \equiv 1 \pmod{N} and M>2M>2 then MM has some prime divisor that differs from p1,p2,,pkp_{1}, p_{2}, \ldots, p_{k}, which is a contradiction.

Thus, SS has infinitely many elements.

To prove the second part, just consider some prime pp such that there does not exist xZx \in \mathbb{Z} such that either x22(modp)x^{2} \equiv 2 \pmod{p} or x23(modp)x^{2} \equiv 3 \pmod{p}. Indeed, suppose that for such prime pp, pSp \in S then we have two cases:

- If nn is even then 22n23n(modp)2 \cdot 2^{n^{2}} \equiv 3^{n} \pmod{p}, which can be written as 2x2y2(modp)2 x^{2} \equiv y^{2} \pmod{p} for some x,yx, y coprime to pp. Then take xx' such that xx1(modp)x x' \equiv 1 \pmod{p}, so 2(xy)2(modp)2 \equiv (x' y)^{2} \pmod{p}, contradicting that 22 is not a quadratic residue modulo pp.
- If nn is odd then we have a similar argument.

Thus, we just need to show that there are infinitely many such primes. By Euler's criterion about quadratic residues, we need
(2p)=(3p)=1 and (2p)2p12(modp),(3p)3p12(modp). \left(\frac{2}{p}\right)=\left(\frac{3}{p}\right)=-1 \text{ and } \left(\frac{2}{p}\right) \equiv 2^{\frac{p-1}{2}} \pmod{p},\left(\frac{3}{p}\right) \equiv 3^{\frac{p-1}{2}} \pmod{p}.
So we can see that p3,5(mod8)p \equiv 3,5 \pmod{8} and p2(mod3)p \equiv 2 \pmod{3}, which implies that we can take any prime of the form p=24k+5p=24k+5 or p=24k+11p=24k+11. Dirichlet's theorem states that the primes of the form an+ban+b for any coprime positive integers a,ba, b are infinite, so we finish our proof. \square

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