The complete solution of the Diophantine equation \((4m^2 + 1)^x + (5m^2 - 1)^y = (3m)^z\) (Q2400088): Difference between revisions

Let \(a\), \(b\), \(c\) be positive integers with \(\gcd(a, b, c) = 1\) and consider the Diophantine equation \[ a^x + b^y = c^z\tag{1} \] where \(x\), \(y\), \(z\) are unknown positive integers. This equation has been investigated by several authors. In particular, Terai conjectured that if \(a, b, c \geq 2\) then equation 1 has at most one solution in \((x, y, z)\) with \(x, y, z \geq 2\). This conjecture implies the classical conjecture of Je\`smanowicz, saying that \[ (m^2 - n^2)^x + (2mn)^y = (m^2 + n^2)^z \] has no solution other than \((x, y, z) = (2, 2, 2)\), where \(m\), \(n\) are positive integers with \(m > n\), \(\gcd(m, n) = 1\) and \(m \not\equiv n \pmod 2\). In this case \(a = m^2 - n^2\), \(b = 2mn\) and \(c = m^2 + n^2\) form a reduced Diophantine triple, thus \((x, y, z) = (2, 2, 2)\) is always a solution. As a related problem, Terai investigated the equation \[ (4m^2 + 1)^x + (5m^2 - 1)^y = (3m)^z,\tag{2} \] where \(m\) is an arbitrary but fixed positive integer, and \(x\), \(y\), \(z\) are unknown positive integers. He proved the following:\vskip\baselineskip \textbf{Theorem 1.} (Terai) If \(0 < m \leq 20\) or \(m \not\equiv 3 \pmod 6\) then equation 2 has the only solution \((x, y, z) = (1, 1, 2)\).\vskip\baselineskip Recently, Su and Li investigated the cases where \(3\mid m\). They obtained the following result.\vskip\baselineskip \textbf{Theorem 2.} (Su and Li) If \(m \geq 90\) and \(3\mid m\) then the only solution to equation 2 is \((x, y, z) = (1, 1, 2)\).\vskip\baselineskip Combining Theorems 1 and 2, provides the complete solution of equation 2 for \(m \leq 20\) or \(90 \leq m\). The aim of the paper is to complete the solution of this equation. Solving the remaining cases and putting it together with Theorems 1 and 2 the author obtain the following:\vskip\baselineskip \textbf{Theorem 3.} For any positive integer \(m\), equation 2 has only one solution in \(x\), \(y\) and \(z\), namely \((x, y, z) = (1, 1, 2)\).