Maths Olympiad Prep

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Combinatorics Difficulty 5.2 AIME, harder Find the answer

3. A line ll passing through the right focus FF of the hyperbola x2y22=1x^{2}-\frac{y^{2}}{2}=1 intersects the hyperbola at points AA and BB. If a real number λ\lambda makes AB=λ|A B|=\lambda, and there are exactly 3 such lines, find λ\lambda.

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

Solution

(The polar equation of the hyperbola is
ρ=213cosθ \rho=\frac{2}{1-\sqrt{3} \cos \theta} \text {. }

Let ABA B be a chord passing through the right focus and intersecting only the right branch.
Then AB=ρ1+ρ2|A B|=\rho_{1}+\rho_{2}
=213cosθ+213cos(θ+π)=413cos2θ4 \begin{array}{l} =\frac{2}{1-\sqrt{3} \cos \theta}+\frac{2}{1-\sqrt{3} \cos (\theta+\pi)} \\ =\frac{4}{1-3 \cos ^{2} \theta} \geqslant 4 \end{array}
(when θ=π2\theta=\frac{\pi}{2}, the equality holds), that is, among the chords passing through the right focus of the hyperbola and intersecting two points on the right branch, the minimum length is 4 if and only if the chord is perpendicular to the xx-axis. Since there are exactly 3 lines that satisfy the condition, we have
(1) There is only one line that intersects both the left and right branches of the hyperbola, which must be the real axis of the hyperbola by symmetry, and there are only two lines that intersect the right branch, which can be verified not to meet the condition;
(2) There are only two lines that intersect both the left and right branches of the hyperbola, and only one line that intersects the right branch, which must be perpendicular to the xx-axis by symmetry. In this case, AB=λ=4|A B|=\lambda=4. When λ=4\lambda=4, it can be proven that there are two lines that intersect both the left and right branches of the hyperbola and have a length of 4, so λ=4\lambda=4. )

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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.