Maths Olympiad Prep

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Number theory Difficulty 5.0 AIME, harder Prove it United States

Problem:
Find all pairs (n,k)(n, k) of positive integers such that
sigma(n)ϕ(n)=n2k sigma(n) \phi(n) = \frac{n^{2}}{k}

Solution

Solution:
Answer: (1,1)(1, 1).

It is clear that for a given integer nn, there is at most one integer kk for which the equation holds. For n=1n=1 this is k=1k=1. But, for n>1n>1, problem 1 asserts that σ(n)ϕ(n)n21<n2\sigma(n) \phi(n) \leq n^{2}-1 < n^{2}, so that k2k \geq 2. We now claim that 2>n2σ(n)ϕ(n)2 > \frac{n^{2}}{\sigma(n) \phi(n)}. Write n=p1e1pkekn = p_{1}^{e_{1}} \cdots p_{k}^{e_{k}}, where the pip_{i} are distinct primes and ei1e_{i} \geq 1 for all ii, and let q1<q2<q_{1} < q_{2} < \cdots be the primes in ascending order. Then
n2σ(n)ϕ(n)=i=1kpi2eipiei+11pi1(pi1)piei1=i=1kpi2eipi2eipiei1=i=1k11pi1eii=1k11pi2<i=111qi2=i=1(j=01qi2j)=n=11n2<1+n=21n21=1+12((1113)+(1214)+(1315)+)=74<2. \begin{aligned} & \frac{n^{2}}{\sigma(n) \phi(n)} = \prod_{i=1}^{k} \frac{p_{i}^{2 e_{i}}}{\frac{p_{i}^{e_{i}+1}-1}{p_{i}-1} \cdot (p_{i}-1) p_{i}^{e_{i}-1}} = \prod_{i=1}^{k} \frac{p_{i}^{2 e_{i}}}{p_{i}^{2 e_{i}} - p_{i}^{e_{i}-1}} \\ & \quad = \prod_{i=1}^{k} \frac{1}{1 - p_{i}^{-1-e_{i}}} \leq \prod_{i=1}^{k} \frac{1}{1 - p_{i}^{-2}} < \prod_{i=1}^{\infty} \frac{1}{1 - q_{i}^{-2}} \\ & \quad = \prod_{i=1}^{\infty} \left( \sum_{j=0}^{\infty} \frac{1}{q_{i}^{2j}} \right ) = \sum_{n=1}^{\infty} \frac{1}{n^{2}} \\ & \quad < 1 + \sum_{n=2}^{\infty} \frac{1}{n^{2}-1} = 1 + \frac{1}{2} \left( \left( \frac{1}{1} - \frac{1}{3} \right ) + \left( \frac{1}{2} - \frac{1}{4} \right ) + \left( \frac{1}{3} - \frac{1}{5} \right ) + \cdots \right ) = \frac{7}{4} < 2. \end{aligned}
It follows that there can be no solutions to k=n2σ(n)ϕ(n)k = \frac{n^{2}}{\sigma(n) \phi(n)} other than n=k=1n = k = 1.

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