Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /23 of 120

Number theory Difficulty 4.9 AIME Prove it Croatia

Determine all primes pp for which there exist positive integers xx and yy such that
{p+1=2x2p2+1=2y2. \begin{cases} p + 1 = 2x^2 \\ p^2 + 1 = 2y^2. \end{cases}

Solution

Subtracting the given equations we get p(p1)=2(yx)(y+x)p(p-1) = 2(y-x)(y+x).
From this we conclude
py+x, p \mid y + x,
because otherwise pp would be a divisor of yxy - x, and p1p - 1 would be a multiple of number y+xy + x, which is impossible (we would have p1y+x>yxpp - 1 \ge y + x > y - x \ge p then).
Since p>yp > y (from the second equation) and y>xy > x, we have 2p>y+x2p > y + x, therefore p=y+xp = y + x.
It follows that p1=2(yx)p - 1 = 2(y - x). By eliminating yy we get p+1=4xp + 1 = 4x. By plugging that in the first equation we easily get that the only solution is p=7p = 7 (x=2,y=5x = 2, y = 5).

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 reproduced verbatim; metadata (topic, difficulty) added by this project.