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Combinatorics Difficulty 6.0 AIME, harder Prove it Taiwan

There is a small river, and on one side of it is a camping base with 4038 tent poles stuck into the ground. Some pairs of tent poles are connected by ropes, each rope connects two different tent poles, and there is at most one rope between any two tent poles. Suppose that whenever we move any 2019 of the tent poles to the opposite bank of the river, there are exactly kk ropes crossing the river. Find all possible values of kk.

Solution

The answer is 0,2019,2018×2019,201920, 2019, 2018 \times 2019, 2019^2.

Consider the graph G(V,E)G(V, E), where the vertex set and edge set correspond respectively to the tent poles and the ropes. For sets S,TVS, T \subset V, let
E(S,T)={(s,t)E:sS,tT}, E(S, T) = \left| \left\{ (s,t) \in E : s \in S, t \in T \right\} \right|,
that is, the number of edges connecting the two groups. To simplify notation, when SS consists of only a single point aa, we abbreviate this set as aa, and so on.

1. Lemma: For all distinct a,b,c,dVa, b, c, d \in V, we have
E(a,b)+E(c,d)=E(a,d)+E(b,c)=E(a,c)+E(b,d) E(a, b) + E(c, d) = E(a, d) + E(b, c) = E(a, c) + E(b, d)
Proof: First divide V{a,b,c,d}V \setminus \{a, b, c, d\} equally into two sets S,TS, T. Taking the two banks of the river to be (a,b,S)(a, b, S) and (c,d,T)(c, d, T) respectively, then by the problem's hypothesis we have
E(a,c)+E(a,d)+E(b,c)+E(b,d)+E(a,T)+E(b,T)+E(c,S)+E(d,S)+E(S,T)=k(1) E(a, c) + E(a, d) + E(b, c) + E(b, d) + E(a, T) + E(b, T) + E(c, S) + E(d, S) + E(S, T) = k \quad (1)
Taking the two banks of the river to be (a,d,S)(a, d, S) and (c,b,T)(c, b, T) respectively, then by the problem's hypothesis we have
E(a,c)+E(a,b)+E(d,c)+E(d,b)+E(a,T)+E(b,S)+E(c,S)+E(d,T)+E(S,T)=k(2) E(a, c) + E(a, b) + E(d, c) + E(d, b) + E(a, T) + E(b, S) + E(c, S) + E(d, T) + E(S, T) = k \quad (2)
Taking the two banks of the river to be (c,d,S)(c, d, S) and (a,b,T)(a, b, T) respectively, then by the problem's hypothesis we have
E(c,a)+E(c,b)+E(d,a)+E(d,b)+E(a,S)+E(b,S)+E(c,T)+E(d,T)+E(S,T)=k(3) E(c, a) + E(c, b) + E(d, a) + E(d, b) + E(a, S) + E(b, S) + E(c, T) + E(d, T) + E(S, T) = k \quad (3)

(3) – (1) gives
(E(a,S)E(a,T))+(E(b,S)E(b,T))=(E(c,S)E(c,T))+(E(d,S)E(d,T)) (E(a, S) - E(a, T)) + (E(b, S) - E(b, T)) = (E(c, S) - E(c, T)) + (E(d, S) - E(d, T))
Similarly we have
(E(a,S)E(a,T))+(E(d,S)E(d,T))=(E(c,S)E(c,T))+(E(b,S)E(b,T)) (E(a, S) - E(a, T)) + (E(d, S) - E(d, T)) = (E(c, S) - E(c, T)) + (E(b, S) - E(b, T))
Subtracting the two equations gives E(b,S)E(b,T)=E(d,S)E(d,T)E(b, S) - E(b, T) = E(d, S) - E(d, T).

E(a,b)+E(d,c)+E(b,S)+E(d,T)=E(a,d)+E(b,c)+E(b,T)+E(d,S) E(a, b) + E(d, c) + E(b, S) + E(d, T) = E(a, d) + E(b, c) + E(b, T) + E(d, S)
Combined with the equation above, we get E(a,b)+E(d,c)=E(a,d)+E(b,c)E(a, b) + E(d, c) = E(a, d) + E(b, c), thus the first part of the Lemma is proved. By the symmetry of a,b,c,da, b, c, d, the second equality also holds.

- If for all a,b,cVa, b, c \in V, E(a,b)=E(a,c)=0E(a, b) = E(a, c) = 0, then the graph has no edges at all, corresponding to k=0k = 0.
- If for all a,b,cVa, b, c \in V, E(a,b)=E(a,c)=1E(a, b) = E(a, c) = 1, then the original graph is a complete graph, corresponding to k=20192k = 2019^2.
- Suppose there exist a,b,cVa, b, c \in V such that E(a,b)=1,E(a,c)=0E(a, b) = 1, E(a, c) = 0. Then for all dd, we have E(a,b)+E(c,d)=E(a,c)+E(b,d)E(a, b) + E(c, d) = E(a, c) + E(b, d), so E(b,d)=1,E(c,d)=0E(b, d) = 1, E(c, d) = 0.
If E(b,c)=1E(b, c) = 1, then bb has an edge to every point. For all points u,v,wu, v, w other than bb, we have E(b,u)+E(v,w)=E(b,v)+E(u,w)E(b, u) + E(v, w) = E(b, v) + E(u, w), hence E(u,w)E(u, w) and E(v,w)E(v, w) are either both 0 or both 1. Also, since E(a,c)=0E(a, c) = 0, V{b}V \setminus \{b\} forms an empty graph, that is, GG is a complete bipartite graph (1,4037)(1, 4037), corresponding to k=2019k = 2019.

If E(b,c)=0E(b, c) = 0, then cc has no edge to any point. By a similar discussion we can see that V{c}V \setminus \{c\} forms a complete graph, that is, GG is the union of a 4037-complete graph and an isolated point, corresponding to k=2018×2019k = 2018 \times 2019.

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