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Belarus — Selection and Training Session

Algebra Difficulty 4.8 AIME Prove it Belarus

Find all pairs of polynomials p(x),q(x)∈R[x]p(x), q(x) \in \mathbb{R}[x] satisfying the equality
p(x2)=p(x)q(1−x)+p(1−x)q(x) p(x^2) = p(x)q(1-x) + p(1-x)q(x)
for all real xx.

Solution

(Solution by A. Asanau, D. Voynov.) Replace xx by 1−x1-x in
p(x2)=p(x)q(1−x)+p(1−x)q(x),(1) p(x^2) = p(x)q(1-x) + p(1-x)q(x), \quad (1)
then we have p((x−1)2)=p(1−x)q(x)+p(x)q(1−x)=p(x2)p((x-1)^2) = p(1-x)q(x) + p(x)q(1-x) = p(x^2). It follows that the polynomial p(x2)p(x^2) is periodic, i.e., p(x)p(x) is a constant polynomial, p(x)=ap(x) = a for some a∈Ra \in \mathbb{R}.
If a=0a=0, then (1) is valid for any arbitrary polynomial q(x)q(x).
If a≠0a \neq 0, then (1) becomes q(1−x)+q(x)=1q(1-x) + q(x) = 1 for all xx. Replacing xx by x+0.5x+0.5 we can rewrite the last equality as
q(0.5−x)−0.5+q(0.5+x)−0.5=0.(2) q(0.5 - x) - 0.5 + q(0.5 + x) - 0.5 = 0. \quad (2)
Let h(x)=q(0.5+x)−0.5h(x) = q(0.5 + x) - 0.5. Then (2) shows that h(−x)=−h(x)h(-x) = -h(x), so we may write h(x)=xr(x2)h(x) = xr(x^2) for some polynomial r(x)r(x).
Hence q(0.5+x)=xr(x2)+0.5q(0.5 + x) = xr(x^2) + 0.5. Replace xx by x−0.5x - 0.5 here, we obtain q(x)=(x−0.5)r((x−0.5)2)+0.5q(x) = (x - 0.5)r((x - 0.5)^2) + 0.5 which obviously satisfies the condition.

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