Maths Olympiad Prep

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Number theory Difficulty 6.1 National Olympiad Prove it United States

Problem:
Find all prime numbers pp such that y2=x3+4xy^{2}=x^{3}+4 x has exactly pp solutions in integers modulo pp.

In other words, determine all prime numbers pp with the following property: there exist exactly pp ordered pairs of integers (x,y)(x, y) such that x,y{0,1,,p1}x, y \in \{0,1, \ldots, p-1\} and
p divides y2x34x p \text{ divides } y^{2}-x^{3}-4 x

Solution

Solution:
Clearly p=2p=2 works with solutions (0,0)(0,0) and (1,1)(1,1) and not (0,1)(0,1) or (1,0)(1,0).

If p3(mod4)p \equiv 3 \pmod{4} then 1-1 is not a quadratic residue, so for x3+4x0x^{3}+4 x \neq 0, exactly one of x3+4xx^{3}+4 x and x34x-x^{3}-4 x is a square and gives two solutions (for positive and negative yy), so there's exactly two solutions for each such pair {x,x}\{x,-x\}. If xx is such that x3+4x=0x^{3}+4 x=0, there's exactly one solution.

If p1(mod4)p \equiv 1 \pmod{4}, let ii be a square root of 1(modp)-1 \pmod{p}. The right hand side factors as x(x+2i)(x2i)x(x+2i)(x-2i). For x=0,2i,2ix=0,2i,-2i this is zero, there is one choice of yy, namely zero. Otherwise, the right hand side is nonzero. For any fixed xx, there are either 00 or 22 choices for yy. Replacing xx by x-x negates the right hand side, again producing two choices for yy since 1-1 is a quadratic residue. So the total number of solutions (x,y)(x, y) is 3(mod4)3 \pmod{4}, and thus there cannot be exactly pp solutions.

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Source: MathNet, licensed CC-BY-4.0. Statement reproduced verbatim; metadata (topic, difficulty) added by this project.