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Bulgarian Mathematical Competitions

Number theory Difficulty 5.2 AIME, harder Prove it Bulgaria

Problem:
Find all odd prime numbers pp which divide the number 1p−1+2p−1+⋯+2004p−11^{p-1}+2^{p-1}+\cdots+2004^{p-1}.

Solution

Solution:
Note that kp−1≡0(modp)k^{p-1} \equiv 0 \pmod{p} if pp divides kk and kp−1≡1(modp)k^{p-1} \equiv 1 \pmod{p} otherwise (by Fermat's little theorem). Then
0≡1p−1+2p−1+⋯+2004p−1≡0⋅[2004p]+1⋅(2004−[2004p])(modp) 0 \equiv 1^{p-1}+2^{p-1}+\cdots+2004^{p-1} \equiv 0 \cdot\left[\frac{2004}{p}\right]+1 \cdot\left(2004-\left[\frac{2004}{p}\right]\right) \pmod{p}
which implies
2004≡[2004p](modp) 2004 \equiv \left[\frac{2004}{p}\right] \pmod{p}
(in particular, p<2004p<2004). Let 2004=qp+r2004=qp+r, where 0≤r≤p−10 \leq r \leq p-1. Then [2004p]=[q+rp]=q\left[\frac{2004}{p}\right]=\left[q+\frac{r}{p}\right]=q and (1)(1) is equivalent to r≡q(modp)r \equiv q \pmod{p}.

For q<pq<p, this congruence gives r=qr=q. Then
2004=(p+1)q≤p2−1 2004=(p+1)q \leq p^{2}-1
and therefore p≥47p \geq 47. Since p+1p+1 divides 2004=3⋅4⋅1672004=3 \cdot 4 \cdot 167, we get p=2003p=2003 which is a solution of the problem.

For q≥pq \geq p, we have that 2004≥pq≥p22004 \geq pq \geq p^{2}, i.e., p≤43p \leq 43. A direct verification of (1) shows that p=17p=17 is the only solution in this case.

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