Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /30 of 69

Number theory Difficulty 5.9 AIME, harder Prove it Mongolia

Find all sequences a1,a2,a_1, a_2, \ldots of positive integers such that the expression nanmam+2am1n a_n - m a_m + 2 a_m - 1 is divisible by an+am1a_n + a_m - 1 for all n,m1n, m \ge 1.
(Unubold Munkhbat)

Solution

Answer: an=1+c(n1)a_n = 1 + c(n - 1) for fixed c0c \ge 0.
It is clear that the above is a solution, so we prove there are no other solutions.
The expression
nnanmam+2am1an+am1=n(am1)+(m2)am+1an+am1 n - \frac{n a_n - m a_m + 2 a_m - 1}{a_n + a_m - 1} = \frac{n(a_m - 1) + (m - 2)a_m + 1}{a_n + a_m - 1}
is an integer for all n,m1n, m \ge 1. Let c=a210c = a_2 - 1 \ge 0. Taking m=2m = 2, we see that cn+1an+c\frac{c n + 1}{a_n + c} is a positive integer.
If c=0c = 0, we have an=1a_n = 1 for all n1n \ge 1. So assume c1c \ge 1 and suppose that cn+1c n + 1 is a prime. Clearly an+c2a_n + c \ge 2, therefore an=1+c(n1)a_n = 1 + c(n - 1). Finally,
(am1)cn(am1)+(m2)am+1cn+amc=am(am1c(m1))cn+amc (a_m - 1) - c \frac{n(a_m - 1) + (m - 2)a_m + 1}{c n + a_m - c} = \frac{a_m(a_m - 1 - c(m - 1))}{c n + a_m - c}
is an integer for any m1m \ge 1. By Dirichlet's theorem, we may assume that nn is sufficiently large, so we must have am=1+c(m1)a_m = 1 + c(m - 1).

Want a route through all this instead of an archive? The track puts 2,000 problems in a working order, from AMC 10 level to the IMO shortlist.

Source: MathNet, licensed CC-BY-4.0. Statement and solution reproduced as published; topic and difficulty added by this site.