Selected Number Theory Problems of China TST

Matin Yousefi
Summer 2020

1. (China TST 2007) A rational number x is called good if it satisfies: x = pq > 1 with p, q
being positive integers, gcd(p, q) = 1 and there exists constant numbers α, N such that for
any integer n ≥ N ,
1
|{xn } − α| ≤
2(p + q)
Find all the good numbers.

2. (China TST 2007) Find all the pairs of positive integers (a, b) such that a2 + b + 1 is a power
of prime number ; a2 + b + 1 can divide b2 − a3 − 1, but it can’t divide (a + b − 1)2 .

3. (China TST 2007) Show that there exists a positive integer k such that k · 2n + 1 is composite
for all n ∈ N0 .

4. (China TST 2008) The sequence {xn } is defined by x1 = 2, x2 = 12, and xn+2 = 6xn+1 − xn ,
(n = 1, 2, . . .). Let p be an odd prime number, let q be a prime divisor of xp . Prove that if
q ̸= 2, 3, then q ≥ 2p − 1.

5. (China TST 2008) Let n > 1 be an integer, and n can divide 2ϕ(n) + 3ϕ(n) + · · · + nϕ(n) , let
p1 , p2 , · · · , pk be all distinct prime divisors of n. Show that p11 + p12 + · · · + p1k + p1 p21···pk is an
integer. ( where ϕ(n) is defined as the number of positive integers ≤ n that are relatively
prime to n.)

6. (China TST 2009) Prove that for any odd prime number p, the number of positive integer n
2
satisfying p|n! + 1 is less than or equal to cp 3 . where c is a constant independent of p.

7. (China TST 2009) Find all integers n ≥ 2 having the following property: for any k inte-
gers a1 , a2 , · · · , ak which aren’t congruent to each other (modulo n), there exists an inte-
ger polynomial f (x) such that congruence equation f (x) ≡ 0(modn) exactly has k roots
x ≡ a1 , a2 , · · · , ak (modn).

8. (China TST √2009) Let n be a composite. Prove that there exists positive integer m satisfying
m|n, m ≤ n, and d(n) ≤ d (m). Where d(k) denotes the number of positive divisors of
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positive integer k.

9. (China TST 2009) Let a > b > 1, b is an odd number, let n be a positive integer. If bn |an − 1,
n
then ab > 3n .

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10. (China TST 2010) Fine all positive integers m, n ≥ 2, such that
(1) m + 1 is a prime number of type 4k − 1;
(2) there is a (positive) prime number p and nonnegative integer a, such that
m2 −1 − 1
n

= m n + pa .
m−1
k+1
11. (China TST 2010) Let k > 1 be an ∏ integer, set n = 2 . Prove that for any positive integers
a1 < a2 < · · · < an , the number 1≤i<j≤n (ai + aj ) has at least k + 1 different prime divisors.
12. (China TST 2010) For integers n > 1, define f (n) to be the sum of all positive divisors of
n that are less than n. Prove that for any positive integer k, there exists a positive integer
n > 1 such that n < f (n) < f 2 (n) < · · · < f k (n), where f i (n) = f (f i−1 (n)) for i > 1 and
f 1 (n) = f (n).
13. (China TST 2010) Given positive integer k, prove that (there
) exists a positive integer N
depending only on k such that for any integer n ≥ N , k has at least k different prime
n

divisors.
14. (China TST 2010) Prove that there exists a sequence of unbounded positive integers a1 ≤
a2 ≤ a3 ≤ · · · , such that there exists a positive integer M with the following property: for
any integer n ≥ M , if n + 1 is not prime, then any prime divisor of n! + 1 is greater than
n + an .
15. (China TST 2010) Given integer a1 ≥ 2. For integer n ≥ 2, define an to be the smallest
positive integer which is not coprime to an−1 and not equal to a1 , a2 , · · · , an−1 . Prove that
every positive integer except 1 appears in this sequence {an }.
16. (China TST 2011) Let a1 , a2 , . . . , an , . . . be any permutation of all positive integers. Prove
that there exist infinitely many positive integers i such that gcd(ai , ai+1 ) ≤ 43 i.
17. (China TST 2011) Let n > 1 be an integer, and let k be the number of distinct prime divisors
of n. Prove that there exists an integer a, 1 < a < nk + 1, such that n | a2 − a.
18. (China TST 2011) Let {bn }∞ ∞
n≥1 be a sequence of positive integers. The sequence {an }n≥1 is
defined as follows: a1 is a fixed positive integer and
an+1 = abnn + 1, ∀n ≥ 1.
Find all positive integers m ≥ 3 with the following property: If the sequence {an mod m}∞ n≥1
is eventually periodic, then there exist positive integers q, u, v with 2 ≤ q ≤ m − 1, such that
the sequence {bv+ut mod q}∞ t≥1 is purely periodic.

19. (China TST 2011) For any positive integer d, prove there are infinitely many positive integers
n such that d(n!) − 1 is a composite number.
20. (China TST 2012) For a positive integer n, denote by τ (n) the number of its positive divisors.
For a positive integer n, if τ (m) < τ (n) for all m < n, we call n a good number. Prove that
for any positive integer k, there are only finitely many good numbers not divisible by k.

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21. (China TST 2012) Given an integer n ≥ 2. Prove that there only exist a finite number of
n-tuples of positive integers (a1 , a2 , . . . , an ) which simultaneously satisfy
∑n the following three
conditions: a1 > a2 > . . . > an ; gcd(a1 , a2 , . . . , an ) = 1; a1 = i=1 gcd(ai , ai+1 ),where
an+1 = a1 .

22. (China TST 2012) Given an integer n ≥ 2, a function f : Z → {1, 2, . . . , n} is called good,
if for any integer k, 1 ≤ k ≤ n − 1 there exists an integer j(k) such that for every integer m
we have
f (m + j(k)) ≡ f (m + k) − f (m) (mod n + 1).
Find the number of good functions.

23. (China TST 2012) Find all integers k ≥ 3 with the following property: There exist integers
m, n such that 1 < m < k, 1 < n < k, gcd(m, k) = gcd(n, k) = 1, m + n > k and
k | (m − 1)(n − 1).

24. (China TST 2017) Given integer d > 1, m,prove that there exists integer k > l > 0, such
that
k l
(22 + d, 22 + d) > m.

25. (China TST 2017) Find the numbers of ordered array (x1 , ..., x100 ) that satisfies the following
conditions:
(i)x1 , ..., x100 ∈ {1, 2, .., 2017};
(ii)2017|x1 + ... + x100 ;
(iii)2017|x21 + ... + x2100 .

26. (China TST 2017) Let n be a positive integer. Let Dn be the set of all divisors of n and
let f (n) denote the smallest natural m such that the elements of Dn are pairwise distinct in
mod m. Show that there exists a natural N such that for all n ≥ N , one has f (n) ≤ n0.01 .

27. (China TST 2017) An integer n > 1 is given . Find the smallest positive number m satisfying
the following conditions: for any set {a, b} ⊂ {1, 2, · · · , 2n − 1} ,there are non-negative
integers x, y ( not all zero) such that 2n|ax + by and x + y ≤ m.

28. (China TST 2017) For a given positive integer n and prime number p, find the minimum
value of positive integer m that satisfies the following property: for any polynomial

f (x) = (x + a1 )(x + a2 ) . . . (x + an )

with posetive integer coefficients, and for any non-negative integer k, there exists a non-
negative integer k ′ such that

vp (f (k)) < vp (f (k ′ )) ≤ vp (f (k)) + m.

Note: for non-zero integer N ,vp (N ) is the largest non-zero integer t that satisfies pt | N .

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29. (China TST 2018) Given a positive integer k, call n good if among
( ) ( ) ( ) ( )
n n n n
, , , ...,
0 1 2 n

at least 0.99n of them are divisible by k. Show that exists some positive integer N such that
among 1, 2, ..., N , there are at least 0.99N good numbers.

30. (China TST 2018) Let k, M be positive integers such that k − 1 is not squarefree. Prove that
there exist a positive real α, such that ⌊α · k n ⌋ and M are coprime for any positive integer n.

31. (China TST 2018) Let M, a, b, r be non-negative integers with a, r ≥ 2, and suppose there
exists a function f : Z → Z satisfying the following conditions: (1) For all n ∈ Z, f (r) (n) =
an + b where f (r) denotes the composition of r copies of f (2) For all n ≥ M , f (n) ≥ 0 (3)
For all n > m > M , n − m|f (n) − f (m) Show that a is a perfect r-th power.

32. (China TST 2018) Let p be a prime and k be a positive integer. Set S contains all positive
integers a satisfying 1 ≤ a ≤ p − 1, and there exists positive integer x such that xk ≡ a
(mod p). Suppose that 3 ≤ |S| ≤ p − 2. Prove that the elements of S, when arranged in
increasing order, does not form an arithmetic progression.

33. (China TST 2019) Fix a positive integer n ≥ 3. Does there exist infinitely many sets S of
positive integers {a1 , a2 , . . . , an , b1 , b2 , . . . , bn }, such
∏that gcd(a
∏1 , a2 , . . . , an , b1 , b2 , . . . , bn ) = 1,
{ai }ni=1 , {bi }ni=1 are arithmetic progressions, and ni=1 ai = ni=1 bi ?

34. (China TST 2019) Does there exist a finite set A of positive integers of at least two elements
and an infinite set B of positive integers, such that any two distinct elements in A + B are
coprime, and for any coprime positive integers m, n, there exists an element x in A + B
satisfying x ≡ n (mod m) ?

35. (China TST 2019) Let S be a set of positive integers, such that n ∈ S if and only if
∑
d ≤ n.
d|n,d<n,d∈S

Find all positive integers n = 2k · p where k is a non-negative integer and p is an odd prime,
such that ∑
d = n.
d|n,d<n,d∈S

36. (China TST 2019) Call a sequence of positive integers {an } good if for any distinct positive
integers m, n, one has

gcd(m, n) | a2m + a2n and gcd(am , an ) | m2 + n2 .

Call a positive integer a to be k-good if there exists a good sequence such that ak = a. Does
there exists a k such that there are exactly 2019 k-good positive integers?