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Algebra Difficulty 5.9 AIME, harder Find the answer

Find all primes pp such that there exist positive integers x,yx,y that satisfy x(y2p)+y(x2p)=5px(y^2-p)+y(x^2-p)=5p .

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

Solution

Rearrange the original equation to get \begin{align*} 5p &= xy^2 + x^2 y - xp - yp \\ &= xy(x+y) -p(x+y) \\ &= (xy-p)(x+y) \end{align*} Since 5p5p , xypxy-p , and x+yx+y are all integers, xypxy-p and x+yx+y must be a factor of 5p5p . Now there are four cases to consider.
Case 1: and
Since xx and yy are positive integers, x+y1x+y \ne 1 , so the first case can not happen.
Case 2: and
Rearranging the first equation results in 5xy5=5p5xy-5 = 5p . By substitution, we get \begin{align*} x+y &= 5xy - 5 \\ 5 &= 5xy - x - y \\ 25 &= 25xy - 5x - 5y. \end{align*} Applying Simon's Favorite Factoring Trick results in 26=(5x1)(5y1)26 = (5x-1)(5y-1) .
From this equation, 5x15x-1 and 5y15y-1 can equal 1, 2, 13, or 26. Since no value of xx or yy work, there are no solutions, so the second case can not happen.
Case 3: and
Rearranging the first equation results in xy5=pxy-5 = p . By substitution and Simon's Favorite Factoring Trick, we get \begin{align*} xy-5 &= x+y \\ xy-x-y &= 5 \\ (x-1)(y-1) &= 6 \end{align*} From this equation, x1x-1 and y1y-1 can equal 1, 2, 3, or 6. The ordered pairs of (x,y)(x,y) can be (2,7)(2,7) , (7,2)(7,2) , (4,3)(4,3) , or (3,4)(3,4) . Since pp is prime, pp can equal 77 in this case.
Case 4: and
Rearranging the first equation results in xy=2pxy = 2p . Since x,yx,y are positive integers, we can simply take the few ordered pairs (x,y)(x,y) that satisfy the second equation and plug the values into the first equation to check for values of pp .
If (x,y)(x,y) is (1,4)(1,4) or (4,1)(4,1) , then 2p=42p = 4 , so p=2p = 2 . If (x,y)(x,y) is (2,3)(2,3) or (3,2)(3,2) , then 2p=62p = 6 , so p=3p = 3 . Both 22 and 33 are prime numbers, so both of the numbers work for pp .
In summary, the values of pp that satisfy the original conditions are 2,3,7\boxed{2, 3, 7} .

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