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Tuesday, 6 October 2020

Prime polynomals

Find all polynomals P where if x is a prime then P(x) is also a prime.

Trivial solutions are P(x) = p for p any prime and P(x)=x.  Now we will prove that these are the only solutions.

As out polynomial has an infinite number of rational points, all coefficients are rational. 

Let q be the common multiple of all denominators and Q(x) = qP(x). Now Q has only integer coefficients. 

There are two possible cases:

Case 1: P(p)=p for all but finitly many primes p.

As to non-identical polynomials can only intersect a finite number of times, and this polynomial intersects P(x)=x an infinite number of times, the polynomial is identical to P(x), a trivial solution.

Case 2: \exists^{\infty} p: P(p)=x with x\neq p

This is equivalent to Q(p)=qx.

As there exists infinitely many p, take a p bigger than 2q

This means that p is coprime with 2q, as it is with x, so p is coprime with 2qx.

According to Dirichlet's theorem, p+2qxk hits infinitely many primes.

Q(p+2qxk) can be written as Q(p) + 2qx\times c with c a constant. 

So if Q(p)=qx, then Q(p+2qx) is a multiple of qx, so P(p+2qx) is a multiple of x.

Now there are two cases:

Case 1: The polynomial is constant. This gives rise to the trivial solutions.

Case 2: The polynomial is unbounded, \forall a,\exists r \forall v > r, |P(v)| > a.

Take a=x, take v a prime of the form p+2qxk which is larger than r.

It has the following properties:

  1. |P(v)| > x
  2. |P(v)| is a multiple of x
  3. |P(v)| is prime.
These 3 properties are unsatisfiable. (the only multiple of x that is prime is x itself, which does not larger than x). Therefore this leads to a contradiction.

This means that the trivial solutions are the only solutions.