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Combinatorics Difficulty 6.4 National olympiad Find the answer

Given two positive integers nn and kk. In the plane, there are nn circles (n2n \geq 2) such that each circle intersects every other circle at two points, and all these intersection points are pairwise distinct.
Each intersection point is colored with one of nn colors such that each color is used at least once and on each of the circles, the same number kk of colors is represented.
Determine all values of nn and kk for which such a coloring is possible.

A number or a short expression. Fractions can be typed as 3/2, and spacing doesn't matter.

Solution

The answer is: 2kn32 \leq k \leq n \leq 3 or 3kn3 \leq k \leq n.
Obviously, knk \leq n according to the problem statement, and k2k \geq 2, because for k=1k=1 all points would have the same color, while the number nn of colors should be 2\geq 2. We number the circles and the colors from 1 to n and denote by F(i,j)F(i, j) the set of colors of the intersection points of circles i and j. F(i,j)F(i, j) contains one or two elements.
Let k=2k=2. For n=2n=2, F(1,2)={1,2}F(1,2)=\{1,2\} is an allowed coloring. For n=3n=3, F(1,2)={3}F(1,2)=\{3\}, F(2,3)={1},F(3,1)={2}F(2,3)=\{1\}, F(3,1)=\{2\} is an example of an allowed coloring. Now let n4n \geq 4. To each of the n circles, we assign the set {i,j}\{i, j\} of the two colors appearing on it. Each of these sets consists of two elements, and each of the n colors must appear in at least two sets, since each colored point is the intersection of two circles. Therefore, each color appears in exactly two sets. For the circle 1 with the set {i,j}\{i, j\}, there are thus at most two other circles whose color sets contain i or j. Since n4n \geq 4, we always find a circle 2 with the set {k,l}\{k, l\} and {k,l}{i,j}={}\{k, l\} \cap\{i, j\}=\{ \}. The intersection points of circles 1 and 2 are then not allowed to be colored, contradiction!
Now we prove by induction a slightly stronger statement than required: For nk3n \geq k \geq 3, there always exists an allowed coloring in which the color i appears on the circle i for all i=1,,ni=1, \ldots, n. For the base case, we give an example for k=n=3k=n=3 with F(1,2)={1,2}F(1,2)=\{1,2\}, F(1,3)={1,3},F(2,3)={2,3}F(1,3)=\{1,3\}, F(2,3)=\{2,3\} and for k=3,n>3k=3, n>3 the following example of an allowed coloring with the additional condition:
F(1,2)={1,2},F(i,i+1)={i}F(1,2)=\{1,2\}, F(i, i+1)=\{i\} for 1<i<n1,F(n1,n)={n2,n1}1<i<n-1, F(n-1, n)=\{n-2, n-1\} and F(i,j)={n}F(i, j)=\{n\} for the remaining pairs (i,j)(i, j) with 1i<jn1 \leq i<j \leq n.
Now assume that the stronger statement is true for some k3k \geq 3, and choose nk+1n \geq k+1. Since n1k3n-1 \geq k \geq 3, there exists an allowed coloring with the additional condition for the circles or colors 1,2,..., n-1. Now we color the intersection points of circle n: For each i=1,,n1i=1, \ldots, n-1, one intersection point of circles i and n is colored with color n. Thus, on each of the circles i with i=1,,n1i=1, \ldots, n-1, exactly k+1k+1 colors appear; among them i and nn. For i=1,,ki=1, \ldots, k, the second intersection point of circles i and n is colored with color i, so that now also on circle nn exactly k+1k+1 colors lie, namely 1 to kk and nn. All other new intersection points are colored with color n, so that no additional colors appear on any circle. This coloring satisfies all conditions.

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Source: NuminaMath-1.5, licensed Apache-2.0. Statement and solution reproduced as published; topic and difficulty added by this site.