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Algebra Difficulty 5.5 AIME, harder Find the answer

Over all pairs of complex numbers (x,y)(x, y) satisfying the equations x+2y2=x4andy+2x2=y4x+2y^{2}=x^{4} \quad \text{and} \quad y+2x^{2}=y^{4} compute the minimum possible real part of xx.

A number or a short expression. Spacing and $ signs are ignored.

Solution

Note the following observations: (a) if (x,y)(x, y) is a solution then (ωx,ω2y)(\omega x, \omega^{2} y) is also a solution if ω3=1\omega^{3}=1 and ω1\omega \neq 1. (b) we have some solutions (x,x)(x, x) where xx is a solution of x42x2x=0x^{4}-2x^{2}-x=0. These are really the only necessary observations and the first does not need to be noticed immediately. Indeed, we can try to solve this directly as follows: first, from the first equation, we get y2=12(x4x)y^{2}=\frac{1}{2}(x^{4}-x), so inserting this into the second equation gives 14(x4x)22x2=y((x4x)28x2)28x4+8x=0x16++41x4+8x=0\begin{aligned} \frac{1}{4}(x^{4}-x)^{2}-2x^{2} & =y \\ \left((x^{4}-x)^{2}-8x^{2}\right)^{2}-8x^{4}+8x & =0 \\ x^{16}+\cdots+41x^{4}+8x & =0 \end{aligned} By the second observation, we have that x(x32x1)x(x^{3}-2x-1) should be a factor of PP. The first observation gives that (x32ωx1)(x32ω2x1)(x^{3}-2\omega x-1)(x^{3}-2\omega^{2} x-1) should therefore also be a factor. Now (x32ωx1)(x32ω2x1)=x6+2x42x3+4x22x+1(x^{3}-2\omega x-1)(x^{3}-2\omega^{2} x-1)=x^{6}+2x^{4}-2x^{3}+4x^{2}-2x+1 since ω\omega and ω2\omega^{2} are roots of x2+x+1x^{2}+x+1. So now we see that the last two terms of the product of all of these is 5x4x-5x^{4}-x. Hence the last two terms of the polynomial we get after dividing out should be x38-x^{3}-8, and given what we know about the degree and the fact that everything is monic, the quotient must be exactly x6x38x^{6}-x^{3}-8 which has roots being the cube roots of the roots to x2x8x^{2}-x-8, which are 1±3323\sqrt[3]{\frac{1 \pm \sqrt{33}}{2}}. Now x32x1x^{3}-2x-1 is further factorable as (x1)(x2x1)(x-1)(x^{2}-x-1) with roots 1,1±521, \frac{1 \pm \sqrt{5}}{2} so it is not difficult to compare the real parts of all roots of PP, especially since 5 are real and non-zero, and we have that Re(ωx)=12x\operatorname{Re}(\omega x)=-\frac{1}{2} x if xRx \in \mathbb{R}. We conclude that the smallest is 13323\sqrt[3]{\frac{1-\sqrt{33}}{2}}.

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