Maths Olympiad Prep

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Algebra Difficulty 5.5 AIME, harder Prove it United States

Problem:
A polynomial f(x)=i=0naixif(x)=\sum_{i=0}^{n} a_{i} x^{i} of degree nn or less is called happy if
(i) Each coefficient aia_{i} satisfies 0ai<10 \leq a_{i}<1;
(ii) f(x)f(x) is an integer for all integers xx.
Find the number of happy polynomials of degree nn or less.

Solution

Solution:
The answer is the "superfactorial"
1!2!n!=1n2n1n1 1! \cdot 2! \cdots n! = 1^{n} 2^{n-1} \cdots n^{1}
For n=1n=1, the result is clear. We will prove as an induction step that there are n!n! times as many happy polynomials of degree at most nn as of degree at most n1n-1.

Let f(x)f(x) be a happy polynomial of degree at most nn. We claim that the leading coefficient of ff is c/n!c / n! for some integer cc. One way to see this is using "Lagrange interpolation": let
f0(x)=0kn(f(k)0jnjkxjkj) f_{0}(x)=\sum_{0 \leq k \leq n}\left(f(k) \prod_{\substack{0 \leq j \leq n \\ j \neq k}} \frac{x-j}{k-j}\right)
On the one hand, f0(x)f_{0}(x) is clearly a polynomial of degree at most nn with rational coefficients. On the other hand, for each x=0,,nx=0, \ldots, n, we have f0(x)=f(x)f_{0}(x)=f(x) since all terms for kxk \neq x are zero and the remaining term is f(x)1f(x) \cdot 1. Therefore f0=ff_{0}=f since two distinct polynomials of degree nn can have at most nn common values. The leading coefficient of f=f0f=f_{0} is a sum of terms of the form
1(k)(k+1)(2)(1)12(nk)f(k)=±1k!(nk)!f(k)=±(nk)n!f(k) \frac{1}{(-k)(-k+1) \cdots(-2)(-1) \cdot 1 \cdot 2 \cdots(n-k)} \cdot f(k)=\frac{ \pm 1}{k !(n-k) !} f(k)=\frac{ \pm\left(\begin{array}{l} n \\ k \end{array}\right)}{n !} f(k)
so it has the form c/n!c / n! for cZc \in \mathbb{Z}.

By the given inequalities, we know that 0c<n!0 \leq c < n!. Given f(x)f(x), let
g(x)=f(x)cx(x1)(xn+1)n!, g(x)=f(x)-c \cdot \frac{x(x-1) \cdots(x-n+1)}{n!},
a polynomial of degree at most n1n-1. For integers xnx \geq n, the fraction in the definition of g(x)g(x) is the integer (xn)\left(\begin{array}{l}x \\ n\end{array}\right), from which it is easy to see that g(x)g(x) is an integer for all integers xx. Let h(x)h(x) be the polynomial obtained by reducing each coefficient of gg mod 1 so as to lie in the interval [0,1)[0,1). Then f(x)h(x)f(x) \mapsto h(x) defines a bijection between
- happy polynomials of degree n\leq n with nnth-degree coefficient c/n!c / n!, and
- happy polynomials of degree n1\leq n-1.

Since there are n!n! possible values of cc, it follows that there are n!n! times as many happy polynomials of degree n\leq n as of degree n1\leq n-1.

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