Olympiad Maths Prep

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Problem 1839

IMO Shortlist mid-range; USAMO P2/P5
Number theory Difficulty 8.6 Find the answer china_team_selection_test

Call a sequence of positive integers {an}\{a_n\} good if for any distinct positive integers m,nm,n, one has
gcd(m,n)am2+an2 and gcd(am,an)m2+n2.\gcd(m,n) \mid a_m^2 + a_n^2 \text{ and } \gcd(a_m,a_n) \mid m^2 + n^2.
Call a positive integer aa to be kk-good if there exists a good sequence such that ak=aa_k = a. Does there exists a kk such that there are exactly 20192019 kk-good positive integers?

Official solution

To determine if there exists a k k such that there are exactly 2019 k k -good positive integers, we first need to understand the properties of a good sequence {an}\{a_n\}. A sequence is defined as good if for any distinct positive integers m m and n n , the following conditions hold:
gcd(m,n)am2+an2andgcd(am,an)m2+n2. \gcd(m, n) \mid a_m^2 + a_n^2 \quad \text{and} \quad \gcd(a_m, a_n) \mid m^2 + n^2.

We describe all good sequences as those satisfying:
nan2andann2 n \mid a_n^2 \quad \text{and} \quad a_n \mid n^2
for every integer n n . This implies that for any prime p p and integer n n , the only constraint is:
νp(n)2νp(an)2νp(n). \frac{\nu_p(n)}{2} \le \nu_p(a_n) \le 2\nu_p(n).

To verify this, we consider the following steps:

1. For m=2n m = 2n , m=3n m = 3n , and n n , we get:
nan2+a2n2,a2n2+a3n2,andan2+a3n2. n \mid a_n^2 + a_{2n}^2, \quad a_{2n}^2 + a_{3n}^2, \quad \text{and} \quad a_n^2 + a_{3n}^2.
This implies:
n2an2. n \mid 2a_n^2.
This is almost the left half of the constraint, except for p=2 p = 2 where it is off by one.

2. To prove the constraint for any prime p p and index n n , we choose m=p2νp(an)+νp(n)+1 m = p^{2\nu_p(a_n) + \nu_p(n) + 1} . This ensures:
νp(m)>νp(n)andνp(am)>νp(m)12>νp(an). \nu_p(m) > \nu_p(n) \quad \text{and} \quad \nu_p(a_m) > \frac{\nu_p(m) - 1}{2} > \nu_p(a_n).
Thus, we have:
νp(n)=νp(gcd(m,n))νp(am2+an2)=νp(an2) \nu_p(n) = \nu_p(\gcd(m, n)) \le \nu_p(a_m^2 + a_n^2) = \nu_p(a_n^2)
and
νp(an)νp(gcd(am,an))νp(m2+n2)=νp(n2). \nu_p(a_n) \le \nu_p(\gcd(a_m, a_n)) \le \nu_p(m^2 + n^2) = \nu_p(n^2).
This confirms the constraint.

Finally, we check if there exists a k k such that there are exactly 2019 k k -good positive integers. For each prime p p , there are 2νp(i)νp(i)2 2\nu_p(i) - \left\lfloor \frac{\nu_p(i)}{2} \right\rfloor choices for νp(ai) \nu_p(a_i) . It is straightforward to verify that this number is never divisible by 3, so the product of such numbers cannot equal 2019.

Therefore, the answer is no. There does not exist a k k such that there are exactly 2019 k k -good positive integers.

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

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