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Number theory Difficulty 7.4 National olympiad, round 2 Find the answer

Determine whether or not there exist positive integers a a and b b such that a a does not divide bn\minusn b^n \minus{} n for all positive integers n n.

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

Solution

We need to determine whether there exist positive integers a a and b b such that a a does not divide bnn b^n - n for all positive integers n n .

To solve this, we claim that for each pair of positive integers (a,b) (a, b) , there exists some n n such that abnn a \mid b^n - n . Consider the infinite sequence of positive integers defined as b1=b b_1 = b and bk+1=bbk b_{k+1} = b^{b_k} . We will use the following lemma:

Lemma (USAMO 1991 P3): The sequence {bk}k1 \{b_k\}_{k \geq 1} eventually becomes constant modulo a a .

Proof of Lemma: We use strong induction on a a . For a=1,2 a = 1, 2 , the result is obvious. Suppose our claim is true for 1,2,,a1 1, 2, \ldots, a-1 . Consider the case when gcd(a,b)=d>1 \gcd(a, b) = d > 1 . Choose some prime divisor p p of d d . Note that, for sufficiently large j j , pνp(a)bj p^{\nu_p(a)} \mid b_j . So we can effectively ignore d d , and assume that gcd(a,b)=1 \gcd(a, b) = 1 . Then it is well known that
bk+1=bbkbbk(modϕ(a))(moda). b_{k+1} = b^{b_k} \equiv b^{b_k \pmod{\phi(a)}} \pmod{a}.
By the induction hypothesis, for sufficiently large k k , the sequence {bk}k1 \{b_k\}_{k \geq 1} eventually becomes constant modulo ϕ(a) \phi(a) , giving the desired result. \Box

Returning to the problem, by choosing n=bk n = b_k for sufficiently large k k , we conclude that abnn a \mid b^n - n . Hence, there do not exist positive integers a a and b b such that a a does not divide bnn b^n - n for all positive integers n n .

The answer is: \boxed{\text{No}}.

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