Maths Olympiad Prep

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, 2023

Algebra Difficulty 5.8 AIME, harder Prove it Taiwan

Find all polynomials PP with real coefficients satisfying that there exist infinitely many pairs (m,n)(m, n) of coprime positive integers such that P(mn)=1nP\left(\frac{m}{n}\right) = \frac{1}{n}.

Solution

Easy to prove that PP must have rational coefficients.
If PP has a degree d2d \ge 2, consider P(x)=pqxd+1MQ(x)P(x) = \frac{p}{q}x^d + \frac{1}{M}Q(x), where p,qZp, q \in \mathbb{Z}, Q(x)Q(x) is a polynomial of degree <d< d with integer coefficients. Suppose P(mn)=1nP\left(\frac{m}{n}\right) = \frac{1}{n}, m,nm, n coprime.
We have Mnd1P(mn)NMn^{d-1}P\left(\frac{m}{n}\right) \in \mathbb{N}, thus qnpMmdqn \mid pMm^d, and so npMn \mid pM. However, nn can be arbitrarily large, so pM=0pM = 0, contradiction. Therefore, we must have d=1d = 1.
Assume P(x)=pxq+rsP(x) = \frac{p x}{q} + \frac{r}{s}, gcd(p,q)=gcd(r,s)=1\gcd(p, q) = \gcd(r, s) = 1. The condition is equivalent to that for infinitely many coprime positive integer pairs (m,n)(m, n),
psm+rqn=qs. psm + rqn = qs.
Let A=psA = ps, B=qrB = qr, C=qsC = qs. We have gcd(A,B)C\gcd(A, B) \mid C. We also must have AB0AB \le 0, otherwise C=Am+Bnm+n|C| = |Am + Bn| \ge |m + n|, contradicting the existence of infinitely many solutions.
Conversely, if gcd(A,B)C\gcd(A, B) \mid C and AB0AB \le 0, we can find integers a,ba, b such that Aa+Bb=gcd(A,B)Aa + Bb = \gcd(A, B). Let m=Bt+Cam = |B|t + Ca, n=At+Cbn = |A|t + Cb, we have Am+Bn=CAm + Bn = C, and gcd(m,n)gcd(C,ambn)=gcd(C,t+s)\gcd(m, n) \mid \gcd(C, am - bn) = \gcd(C, t + s), where ss is some integer independent of tt. Therefore, we have found large enough tt so that m,nm, n are positive and coprime.
So all solutions of P(x)P(x) are P(x)=pxq+rsP(x) = \frac{p x}{q} + \frac{r}{s}, such that gcd(ps,qr)qs\gcd(ps, qr) \mid qs and prqs0\frac{pr}{qs} \le 0. Since gcd(p,q)=gcd(r,s)=1\gcd(p, q) = \gcd(r, s) = 1, so gcd(ps,qr)=gcd(p,r)gcd(q,s)\gcd(ps, qr) = \gcd(p, r)\gcd(q, s), the first condition is equivalent to gcd(p,r)=1\gcd(p, r) = 1.

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Source: MathNet, licensed CC-BY-4.0. Statement translated into English from en; metadata (topic, difficulty) added by this project.