Perfect powers expressible as sums of two cubes (Q731237): Difference between revisions

The authors obtain important results concerning the equation \[ a^3+b^3=c^n.\leqno(1) \] It is conjectured that \((1)\) does not have any non-trivial primitive solutions in case \(n\geq 3\). It is a consequence of the \(abc\)-conjecture at least if \(n\) is large enough. The authors establish the existence of infinitely many prime numbers \(n\) such that \((1)\) does not have any non-trivial primitive solutions, for instance those which satisfy the condition \[ n\equiv \pm 2 \mod 5. \] The existence of infinitely many prime numbers answering positively to the above conjecture was not proved before this work. They use a method which is a combination of the modular approach via Galois representations, with obstructions to the solutions, that are of Brauer-Manin type, of hyperelliptic curves linked to the equation (1).