For a polynomialƒ and a positive integer , define as the number of positive integer pairs such that and is divisible by . Determine all polynomial with integer coefficients such that for all positive integers .
Solution
There are two possible families of solutions: - , for some integer . - , for some integer . Suppose satisfies the problem conditions. Clearly cannot be a constant polynomial. Notice that a polynomial satisfies the conditions if and only if also satisfies them. Hence, we may assume the leading coefficient of is positive. Then, there exists positive integer such that for . Lemma 1. For any positive integer , the integers leave pairwise distinct remainders upon division by . Proof. Assume for contradiction that this is not the case. Then, for some , there exists such that . Since for all integers, we have for any integer . Let be a positive integer such that , and let be a positive integer such that . Each of the integers leaves one of the remainders upon division by . This implies that at least (possibly overlapping) pairs leave the same remainder upon division by . Since and all of the integers are positive, we find more than 2021 pairs with for which is divisible by - hence, , a contradiction. Next, we show that is linear. Assume that this is not the case, i.e., . Then we can find a positive integer such that . This means that among the integers , two of them, namely and , leave the same remainder upon division by - contradicting the lemma (by taking ). Hence, must be linear. We can now write with . We prove that by two ways. Solution 1 If , then and leave the same remainder upon division by , contradicting the Lemma. Hence . Solution 2 Suppose . Let be a positive integer such that and . Notice that for any positive integers such that . Hence, satisfies the condition in the question for all positive integers such that . Hence, , a contradiction. Then, . If , then there are at least 2022 pairs such that , namely . This implies that . Finally, we verify that satisfies the condition for any . Fix a positive integer . Note that for all positive integers , so the only pairs for which could be divisible by are those for which . When , there are indeed at most 2021 such pairs.