Monday, 22 June 2015

Functional equation of divisibility



I am struggling with the following issue:

Find all functions f:N+N+, such that for all positive integers m and n, there is divisibility
m2+f(n)mf(m)+n



N+ stands for the set of positive integers



I've tried various substitutions but I dont know how to solve functional equations of this form therefore I couldn't manage to find any f. I think this is a interesting problem so I'd like to know the answer.


Answer



Thanks @lulu for showing that f(1)=1. Now I can finish the problem by proving that the identity is the only possibility for f.



Suppose that there exists m such that $f(m)
$$m^2+1=m^2+f(1)\le mf(m)+1a contradiction. Now suppose there exists n such that f(n)>n. Taking m=1, we have
1+n<1+f(n)f(1)+n=1+n ,
another contradiction. Thus f(n)=n for all n.


Addendum. Proof that f(1)=1. This proof was provided in a comment by Lulu, I'm copying it verbatim here in case the comment disappears in the future.

Setting n=1 we see that m2+f(1) divides mf(m)+1 for all m. But if there were a prime pf(1) then taking m=p gives a contradiction, hence there is no such p which implies that f(1)=1.


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