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Number theory Difficulty 6.1 National olympiad Prove it Saudi Arabia

Let aa be a positive integer. Find all prime numbers pp with the following property: there exist exactly pp ordered pairs of integers (x,y)(x, y), with 0x,yp10 \leq x, y \leq p-1, such that pp divides y2x3a2xy^{2}-x^{3}-a^{2} x.

Solution

The case p=2p=2 works with solutions (0,0)(0,0) and (1,1)(1,1) if aa is even; (0,0)(0,0) and (0,1)(0,1) if aa is odd.

We claim that any odd prime divisor pp of aa also works. Of course for 0x,yp10 \leq x, y \leq p-1, the congruence y2x3(modp)y^{2} \equiv x^{3} \pmod{p} implies that x=0x=0 if and only if y=0y=0. For any 0<xp10 < x \leq p-1, it's clear that x3=x2xx^{3} = x^{2} \cdot x is a quadratic residue modulo pp if and only if xx is.

Therefore, if xx is not a quadratic residue then we cannot find any yy such that y2x3(modp)y^{2} \equiv x^{3} \pmod{p} and if xx is a quadratic residue the congruence y2x3(modp)y^{2} \equiv x^{3} \pmod{p} has exactly 2 solutions in the set {1,2,,p1}\{1,2, \ldots, p-1\} (the condition pp is odd ensures that 2 solutions are distinct).

Since there are (p1)/2(p-1)/2 quadratic residues, the number of (x,y)(x, y) with the required property is
1+2(p1)/2=p. 1 + 2 \cdot (p-1)/2 = p.
If p3(mod4)p \equiv 3 \pmod{4} then 1-1 is not a quadratic residue, so if x3+a2x0x^{3} + a^{2} x \neq 0, then exactly one of x3+a2xx^{3} + a^{2} x and x3a2x-x^{3} - a^{2} x is a square and it gives two solutions. Together with (0,0)(0,0), it gives us exactly pp solutions.

If p1(mod4)p \equiv 1 \pmod{4}, let ii be a square root of 1(modp)-1 \pmod{p}, i.e. i2=1i^{2} = -1. Then we have
y2x(x+ai)(xai)(modp). y^{2} \equiv x(x + a i)(x - a i) \pmod{p}.
For x=0,ai,aix = 0, a i, -a i, we have one choice of y=0y = 0. For other choices of xx, we have either 0 or 2 choices of yy. Replacing xx by x-x, since 1-1 is a quadratic residue, we also have two choices for yy. Hence, the total number of pairs is 3(mod4)3 \pmod{4}, which cannot be exactly pp.

Thus, the answer is p=2p = 2, all the odd prime divisors of aa and p3(mod4)p \equiv 3 \pmod{4}.

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