Let be a monic cubic polynomial satisfying for all real numbers . For all real numbers , define to be the number of distinct real solutions to the equation . Suppose that the set of possible values of over all real numbers is exactly . Compute the sum of all possible values of .
Solution
We claim that we must have . First, note that the condition implies that is odd. Combined with being monic, we know that for some real number . Note that must be negative; otherwise and would both be increasing and 1 would be the only possible value of . Now, consider the condition that the set of possible values of is . The fact that we can have means that some horizontal line crosses the graph of times. Since has degree 9, this means that its graph will have 4 local maxima and 4 local minima. Now, suppose we start at some value of such that , and slowly increase . At some point, the value of will decrease. This happens when is equal to a local maximum of . Since must jump from 9 down to 5, all four local maxima must have the same value. Similarly, all four local minima must also have the same value. Since is odd, it suffices to just consider the four local maxima. The local maximum of occurs when . For convenience, let , so . Then, the local maximum is at , and has a value of . We consider the local maxima of next. They occur either when (meaning is at a local maximum) or . If , then . Thus, we must have . This yields the equation which factors as . The only possible value of is 1. Thus, , and our answer is .