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Number theory Difficulty 7.6 National olympiad, round 2 Prove it

Let TT be a non-empty finite subset of positive integers 1\ge 1. A subset SS of TT is called good if for every integer tTt\in T there exists an ss in SS such that gcd(t,s)>1gcd(t,s) >1. Let

A=(X,Y)XT,YT,gcd(x,y)=1for allxX,yYA={(X,Y)\mid X\subseteq T,Y\subseteq T,gcd(x,y)=1 \text{for all} x\in X, y\in Y}

Prove that :
a)a) If X0X_0 is not good then the number of pairs (X0,Y)(X_0,Y) in AA is even.
b)b) the number of good subsets of TT is odd.

Solution

### Part (a)

1. Graph Construction: Construct an undirected graph G G where each vertex corresponds to an element in T T . There is an edge between vertices s s and t t if and only if gcd(s,t)>1\gcd(s, t) > 1.

2. **Non-Good Subset X0 X_0 **: Since X0 X_0 is not a good subset, there exists at least one vertex vT v \in T such that v v is not adjacent to any vertex in X0 X_0 . This means gcd(v,x)=1\gcd(v, x) = 1 for all xX0 x \in X_0 .

3. Counting Pairs: Consider the set of pairs (X0,Y)(X_0, Y) in A A . For each subset YT Y \subseteq T , we need gcd(x,y)=1\gcd(x, y) = 1 for all xX0 x \in X_0 and yY y \in Y .

4. **Splitting by v v **: Since v v is not adjacent to any vertex in X0 X_0 , v v can either be included in Y Y or not. This creates a natural partition of the pairs (X0,Y)(X_0, Y) into two disjoint sets: those that include v v and those that do not.

5. Even Count: Each pair (X0,Y)(X_0, Y) can be uniquely paired with (X0,Y{v})(X_0, Y \cup \{v\}) if vY v \notin Y . This implies that the total number of such pairs is even.

Thus, if X0 X_0 is not a good subset, the number of pairs (X0,Y)(X_0, Y) in A A is even.

### Part (b)

1. **Set A A **: Consider the set A={(X,Y)XT,YT,gcd(x,y)=1 for all xX,yY} A = \{(X, Y) \mid X \subseteq T, Y \subseteq T, \gcd(x, y) = 1 \text{ for all } x \in X, y \in Y\} .

2. Pairing Property: For every pair (X,Y)A(X, Y) \in A, the pair (Y,X)A(Y, X) \in A as well. If X=Y X = Y , then gcd(x,y)=1\gcd(x, y) = 1 for all x,yX x, y \in X , which implies X X and Y Y must be empty (since gcd(x,x)=x>1\gcd(x, x) = x > 1 for any xT x \in T ).

3. **Odd Cardinality of A A **: Since each pair (X,Y)(X, Y) can be paired with (Y,X)(Y, X) and the only unpaired element is (,)(\emptyset, \emptyset), the total number of elements in A A is odd.

4. Counting Good Subsets: For each subset XT X \subseteq T , count the number of times it appears as the first element of a pair in A A :
- If X X is a good subset, it appears an odd number of times.
- If X X is not a good subset, it appears an even number of times (as shown in part (a)).

5. Conclusion: Since the total number of pairs in A A is odd, the number of good subsets must be odd to balance the count.

\blacksquare

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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.