Monday, April 9, 2018

Finite number of solutions to an equation



In the course of solving some other tasks I came across the following two equations where I need to show that there are only finitely many solutions to it respectively none at all. However, I have some trouble to actually show that there are no (more) solutions to it.



It would be great if one of you could give me some argument.




The first one: we have a,bZ and d1mod4 with dZ<0 but d3. The equation is a2+ab+b21d4=±1
with the only solutions being (±1,0).



I computed that of course those are solutions and the fact that d3 excludes the solutions (1,1),(1,1),(0,1),(0,1). How do I show that there are no more solutions to it?



The second one: Have x,yZ and show that there are no solutions (x,y) in Z2 for
|x210y2|={2,3}.



I assume this could somehow work by considering two cases and using some modulo argument but I'm not sure.


Answer




Hint for your first equation: it seeks for units in the ring of integers of Q[d] (why?). There is a standard way of rewriting your equation (a+b/2)2d(b/2)2=±1. Now the left hand side is a positive quadratic form so there aren't much possibilities for a,b...



Hint for your second equation: try a reduction mod 5. Usually reducing mod d gives useful information, where d is the discriminant of your quadratic form. Another approach to this pell equation would be using the fact that if a pell equation has solution, it has a small solution (see every resource on pell equations), so that you only need to check a finite number of points. However it is in fact always possible to find a local obstruction mod some prime number, by Hasse-Minkowski.


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