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Number theory Difficulty 8.2 Shortlist Prove it United States

Determine whether or not there exist positive integers aa and bb such that aa does not divide bnnb^n - n for all positive integers nn.

Solution

Solution 1. For all pairs of positive integers aa and bb, we claim that there exist infinitely many nn such that aa divides bnnb^n - n.
We establish our claim by strong induction on aa. The base case of a=1a = 1 holds trivially. Now, suppose that the claim holds for all a<a0a < a_0. Since φ(a)<a\varphi(a) < a, by the induction hypothesis and by Lemma 1, there are infinitely many nn such that
φ(a)(bnn)andbn+φ(a)bn(moda). \varphi(a) \mid (b^n - n) \quad \text{and} \quad b^{n+\varphi(a)} \equiv b^n \pmod{a}.
For each such nn, set
t=bnnφ(a)andn1=bn=n+tφ(a). t = \frac{b^n - n}{\varphi(a)} \quad \text{and} \quad n_1 = b^n = n + t\varphi(a).

It follows that
bn1n1bn+tφ(a)(n+tφ(a))bnntφ(a)0(moda). b^{n_1} - n_1 \equiv b^{n+t\varphi(a)} - (n+t\varphi(a)) \equiv b^n - n - t\varphi(a) \equiv 0 \pmod{a}.
Then, we see that n1n_1 satisfies the desired property. By the induction hypothesis, there are infinitely many n1=bnn_1 = b^n satisfying the conditions of the claim for aa, completing the induction.

Solution 2. We prove that no such a,ba, b exist by proving the following: for any a,ba, b, there is an arithmetic progression nh(modm)n \equiv h \pmod m, with mm divisible only by primes less than or equal to the greatest prime factor of aa, such that bnn(moda)b^n \equiv n \pmod a for all sufficiently large nn satisfying nh(modm)n \equiv h \pmod m.
Let us induct on highest prime divisor of aa. The result is trivial for a=1a = 1. Let pp be a prime, and suppose that the result is true whenever all the prime divisors of aa are less than pp. Now, suppose that pp is the greatest prime divisor of some aa, and write a=pea1a = p^e a_1, where a1a_1 has all prime factors less than pp. By the induction hypothesis, there is an arithmetic progression nh1(modm1)n \equiv h_1 \pmod{m_1}, with m1m_1 divisible only by primes strictly less than pp, such that for nh1(modm1)n \equiv h_1 \pmod{m_1} sufficiently large, bnn(moda1)b^n \equiv n \pmod{a_1}. There is no harm in assuming that p1p-1 divides m1m_1. In this case, in this arithmetic progression, bnb^n is eventually constant modulo pp due to the lemma. We can thus choose a congruence modulo pp so that for nn an appropriate residue class modulo m1pm_1p, bnn(modp)b^n \equiv n \pmod{p}. In this progression, bnb^n is constant modulo p2p^2, so we can refine our choice of nn modulo m1pm_1p to a choice of nn modulo m1p2m_1p^2 to force bnn(modp2)b^n \equiv n \pmod{p^2}. We can then repeat the above process until we obtain bnn(modpe)b^n \equiv n \pmod{p^e}. Since we originally had bnn(moda1)b^n \equiv n \pmod{a_1}, combining the two congruences using the Chinese Remainder Theorem gives us bnn(moda)b^n \equiv n \pmod a for all sufficiently large nn in the congruence class generated at the last step. This completes the induction.

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