Maths Olympiad Prep

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Taiwan IMO Selection Camp, 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 d≥2d \ge 2, consider P(x)=pqxd+1MQ(x)P(x) = \frac{p}{q}x^d + \frac{1}{M}Q(x), where p,q∈Zp, 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 Mnd−1P(mn)∈NMn^{d-1}P\left(\frac{m}{n}\right) \in \mathbb{N}, thus qn∣pMmdqn \mid pMm^d, and so n∣pMn \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 AB≤0AB \le 0, otherwise ∣C∣=∣Am+Bn∣≥∣m+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 AB≤0AB \le 0, we can find integers a,ba, b such that Aa+Bb=gcd⁡(A,B)Aa + Bb = \gcd(A, B). Let m=∣B∣t+Cam = |B|t + Ca, n=∣A∣t+Cbn = |A|t + Cb, we have Am+Bn=CAm + Bn = C, and gcd⁡(m,n)∣gcd⁡(C,am−bn)=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 prqs≤0\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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