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Number theory Difficulty 5.8 AIME, harder Prove it Baltic Way

Let mm and nn be positive integers, assumed relatively prime. Determine all possible values of
gcd(2m2n,2m2+mn+n21). \text{gcd}(2^m - 2^n, 2^{m^2+mn+n^2} - 1).

Solution

We may assume mnm \ge n. It is well known that
gcd(2p1,2q1)=2gcd(p,q)1, \text{gcd}(2^p - 1, 2^q - 1) = 2^{\text{gcd}(p,q)} - 1,
so that
gcd(2m2n,2m2+mn+n21)=gcd(2mn1,2m2+mn+n21)=2gcd(mn,m2+mn+n2)1. \begin{aligned} \text{gcd}(2^m - 2^n, 2^{m^2+mn+n^2} - 1) &= \text{gcd}(2^{m-n} - 1, 2^{m^2+mn+n^2} - 1) \\ &= 2^{\text{gcd}(m-n, m^2+mn+n^2)} - 1. \end{aligned}
Next, consider a divisor dmnd \mid m-n. We must have gcd(m,d)=1\text{gcd}(m, d) = 1, since mm and nn are relatively prime. It follows that 0m2+mn+n23m2(modd)0 \equiv m^2 + mn + n^2 \equiv 3m^2 \pmod{d} is equivalent to d3d \mid 3, and we infer that
gcd(mn,m2+mn+n2)=gcd(mn,3), \text{gcd}(m - n, m^2 + mn + n^2) = \text{gcd}(m - n, 3),
which is 1 or 3.
Hence gcd(2m2n,2m2+mn+n21)\text{gcd}(2^m - 2^n, 2^{m^2+mn+n^2} - 1) may only assume the values 1 and 7. Both values are possible, since m=2,n=1m = 2, n = 1 gives
gcd(2221,222+21+121)=gcd(2,271)=1, \text{gcd}(2^2 - 2^1, 2^{2^2+2 \cdot 1+1^2} - 1) = \text{gcd}(2, 2^7 - 1) = 1,
and m=1,n=1m = 1, n = 1 gives
gcd(2121,212+11+121)=gcd(0,231)=7. \text{gcd}(2^1 - 2^1, 2^{1^2+1 \cdot 1+1^2} - 1) = \text{gcd}(0, 2^3 - 1) = 7.

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