Over all pairs of complex numbers satisfying the equations compute the minimum possible real part of .
Solution
Note the following observations: (a) if is a solution then is also a solution if and . (b) we have some solutions where is a solution of . 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 , so inserting this into the second equation gives By the second observation, we have that should be a factor of . The first observation gives that should therefore also be a factor. Now since and are roots of . So now we see that the last two terms of the product of all of these is . Hence the last two terms of the polynomial we get after dividing out should be , and given what we know about the degree and the fact that everything is monic, the quotient must be exactly which has roots being the cube roots of the roots to , which are . Now is further factorable as with roots so it is not difficult to compare the real parts of all roots of , especially since 5 are real and non-zero, and we have that if . We conclude that the smallest is .