AlgebraDifficulty 7.6National olympiad, round 2Find the answer
Determine whether there exist an odd positive integer n and n×n matrices A and B with integer entries, that satisfy the following conditions: (1) det(B)=1; (2) AB=BA; (3) A4+4A2B2+16B4=2019I. (Here I denotes the n×n identity matrix.)
A number or a short expression. Spacing and $ signs are ignored.
Solution
We show that there are no such matrices. Notice that A4+4A2B2+16B4 can factorized as A4+4A2B2+16B4=(A2+2AB+4B2)(A2−2AB+4B2) Let C=A2+2AB+4B2 and D=A2−2AB+4B2 be the two factors above. Then detC⋅detD=det(CD)=det(A4+4A2B2+16B4)=det(2019I)=2019n The matrices C,D have integer entries, so their determinants are integers. Moreover, from C≡D(mod4) we can see that detC≡detD(mod4) This implies that detC⋅detD≡(detC)2(mod4), but this is a contradiction because 2019n≡3(mod4) is a quadratic nonresidue modulo 4. Solution 2. Notice that A4≡A4+4A2B2+16B4=2019Imod4 so (detA)4=detA4≡det(2109I)=2019n(mod4) But 2019n≡3 is a quadratic nonresidue modulo 4, contradiction.
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