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Combinatorics Difficulty 9.0 IMO level Prove it Bulgaria

Some cities of country Graphland are connected with roads provided that
* (i) from each city we can reach any other city.
It turned out that every city AA can choose its favourite number 1f(A)20241 \le f(A) \le 2024 which is an integer, such that the following condition holds:
* (ii) the favourite numbers of any two cities connected with a road are different.
Let 1m20241 \le m \le 2024 be a given integer. A tourist arrives in the capital of Graphland. He can move from city AA to city BB (in this direction), if and only if there is a road connecting AA and BB and additionally
f(B)f(A)m(mod2024). f(B) - f(A) \equiv m \pmod{2024}.
For which values of mm it is guaranteed (no matter of the cities and roads, provided that (i) and (ii) hold) that the cities can choose their favourite numbers (complying with (ii)) in a way that the tourist can reach any city starting from the capital?
(Dragomir Grozev)

Solution

Answer: For each mm coprime with 20242024.

Let us first assume that (m,2024)>1(m, 2024) > 1. Then the tourist, starting from the capital with a favourite number rr, can reach only cities with numbers km+rkm + r (mod 20242024), kNk \in \mathbb{N}. Since it is not a complete system of residues modulo 20242024, it means that the set of all favourite numbers consists of less than 20242024 numbers. Take now 20242024 cities and connect every two of them with a road. This is an example for which (i) can hold if all colours (favourite numbers) are used. That is, in this particular case it's impossible to reach every city starting from the capital.

Let us assume now that (m,2024)=1(m, 2024) = 1. Denote by VV the set of all cities and let WVW \subset V be the maximal possible subset of vertices such that we can assign favourite numbers and starting from the capital v0v_0 we can reach every vertex in WW. We prove W=VW = V. Assume for the sake of contradiction WVW \neq V. Then, for any vertices uW,vVWu \in W, v \in V \setminus W that are connected, we have
f(v)f(u)m(mod2024)(1) f(v) - f(u) \neq m \pmod{2024} \quad (1)
Now, we construct a different mapping f1f_1 by changing the assigning of vertices in VWV \setminus W. We set,
f1(v)[1..2024],f1(v)=f(v)m(mod2024),vVW. f_1(v) \in [1..2024], f_1(v) = f(v) - m \pmod{2024}, \forall v \in V \setminus W.
For any vWv \in W we set f1(v)=f(v)f_1(v) = f(v). Observe that under the new mapping f1f_1, condition (i) still holds. Indeed, if f1(u)=f1(v)f_1(u) = f_1(v) for some connected vertices uW,vVWu \in W, v \in V \setminus W, it implies f(u)=f(v)+mf(u) = f(v) + m and thus, we would reach vv from uu under the mapping ff, which contradicts the maximality of WW.

Therefore, the mapping f1f_1 satisfies (i), and moreover starting from v0v_0 we can reach any vertex in WW. Since WW is maximal, it's not possible to access any vertex outside WW. It allows us to change the assignment of favourite numbers again using the rule
f2(v)=f1(v)m(mod2024),vVW f_2(v) = f_1(v) - m \pmod{2024}, \forall v \in V \setminus W
and so on. Suppose now, uW,vVWu \in W, v \in V \setminus W are connected. There exists kk for which f(u)+m=f(v)kmf(u) + m = f(v) - km, because {km:k=1,2,,2024}\{km : k = 1, 2, \dots, 2024\} is a complete system of residues modulo 20242024. But this means that under the mapping fkf_k, the vertex vv is accessible from uu, which contradicts the maximality of WW. \square

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