Let be a positive integer, and be a prime number such that . Prove that the number of positive integers , for which
is a square of some positive integer, does not depend on . (Bulgaria 2013)
Solution
Let for some positive integer . Since
is a perfect square, there exists a positive integer such that , i.e. , and hence is even. Thus and , hence .
Since is prime, it follows that , i.e. for some positive integer . Thus ,
and .
However, , so meaning that every choice of yields valid .
Now assume that two different choices and yield the same , i.e. . It follows that and hence , which is impossible because .
Thus, the number of valid positive integers is equal to the number of divisors of , which does not depend on .
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