Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /53 of 92

Geometry Difficulty 6.5 National olympiad Prove it Iran

Suppose that II is the incenter of triangle ABCABC. The perpendicular to line AIAI from point II intersects sides ACAC and ABAB in points BB' and CC', respectively. Points B1B_1 and C1C_1 are placed on half-lines BCBC and CBCB, respectively, in such a way that AB=BB1AB = BB_1 and AC=CC1AC = CC_1. If TT is the second intersection point of the circumcircles of triangles AB1CAB_1C' and AC1BAC_1B', prove that the circumcenter of triangle ATIATI lies on the line BCBC.

Solution

Throughout the solution, let ω\omega and ωa\omega_a be the circumcircle of triangle ABCABC and the excircle of ABCABC tangent to side BCBC, respectively. Furthermore, OO and IaI_a are the centers of ω\omega and ωa\omega_a, respectively.
Under an inversion with center AA and power AB×ACAB \times AC, and then a reflection with respect to the bisector of BAC\angle BAC, BB' is sent to some point of line ABAB, and CC' to some point of line ACAC. Denote by BB'' and CC'' these two points, respectively. Note that
ABAC=ACAB=ABAC=AIAIa. AB' \cdot AC'' = AC' \cdot AB'' = AB \cdot AC = AI \cdot AI_a.
Therefore, the quadrilaterals IIaBCII_aB''C' and IIaCBII_aC''B' are cyclic. Since IaIB=90\angle I_aIB' = 90^\circ, we get IaCACI_aC'' \perp AC and hence CC'' is the tangency point of ωa\omega_a and ACAC. Similarly, BB'' is the tangency point of ωa\omega_a and ABAB.
Now, we are going to find the image of B1B_1 and C1C_1 under the transformation mentioned above. Denote by MM and NN the midpoints of arcs ACBACB and ABCABC of circle ω\omega, respectively. Then BAC1=CAM\angle BAC_1 = \angle CAM. We know that under the transformation, line BCBC transforms to circle ω\omega. Hence C1C_1 is sent to MM. Analogously, B1B_1 is sent to NN. So TT is sent to the intersection point of lines NCNC'' and MBMB'', say TT'. Note that the tangent to ω\omega at MM is parallel to the tangent to ωa\omega_a at CC''. Thus the direct homothetic center of ω\omega and ωa\omega_a, lies on line NCNC''. Denote this point by TT''. By a similar argument, TT'' lies on MBMB'' and hence T=TT'' = T' lies on line OIaOI_a. This implies that TIaT'I_a is perpendicular to ω\omega. Since the transformation above preserves angles, we deduce that the circumcircle of ATIATI (the transformation of TIaT'I_a) is perpendicular to BCBC (the transformation of ω\omega) and hence the center of this circle lies on the side BCBC.

Want a route through all this instead of an archive? The track puts 2,000 problems in a working order, from AMC 10 level to the IMO shortlist.

Source: MathNet, licensed CC-BY-4.0. Statement and solution reproduced as published; topic and difficulty added by this site.