Olympiad Maths Prep

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Problem 129

AMC 10/12, early questions
Algebra Difficulty 3.4 Find the answer

If the inequality x2+2xya(x2+y2)x^{2}+2xy\leqslant a(x^{2}+y^{2}) holds for all positive numbers xx and yy, find the minimum value of the real number aa.

Official solution

From the given condition, we have ax2+2xyx2+y2a\geqslant \frac {x^{2}+2xy}{x^{2}+y^{2}}.

Consider x2+y2=(1m2)x2+m2x2+y2x^{2}+y^{2}=(1-m^{2})x^{2}+m^{2}x^{2}+y^{2} (m>0)(m > 0).

Applying the basic inequality, we have (1m2)x2+m2x2+y2(1m2)x2+2mxy(1-m^{2})x^{2}+m^{2}x^{2}+y^{2}\geqslant (1-m^{2})x^{2}+2mxy, with equality holding if and only if mx=ymx=y.

Thus, x2+2xyx2+y2x2+2xy(1m2)x2+2mxy\frac {x^{2}+2xy}{x^{2}+y^{2}}\leqslant \frac {x^{2}+2xy}{(1-m^{2})x^{2}+2mxy}.

When 1m2=m1-m^{2}=m, i.e., m=512m= \frac { \sqrt {5}-1}{2}, x2+2xyx2+y2\frac {x^{2}+2xy}{x^{2}+y^{2}} attains its maximum value of 251=5+12\frac {2}{ \sqrt {5}-1}= \frac { \sqrt {5}+1}{2}.

Therefore, a5+12a\geqslant \frac { \sqrt {5}+1}{2}, so the minimum value of aa is 5+12\boxed{\frac { \sqrt {5}+1}{2}}.

This problem requires the application of the basic inequality to find the minimum value of aa. Pay attention to the transformation and the conditions for equality to hold. This is a moderate-difficulty problem.

Source: NuminaMath-1.5, licensed Apache-2.0. Statement and solution reproduced as published; topic, difficulty and ordering added by this site.