Variants of the Brocard-Ramanujan equation (Q1011959)

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Variants of the Brocard-Ramanujan equation
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    Variants of the Brocard-Ramanujan equation (English)
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    14 April 2009
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    It is expected that the only solutions to the Diophantine equation \[ n!+1=y^2\tag{1} \] are \((y,n)=(5,4),(11,5),(71,7)\) (the Brocard-Ramanujan problem). \textit{M. Overholt} [Bull. Lond. Math. Soc. 25, No. 2, 104 (1993; Zbl 0805.11030)] showed that the weak form of Szpiro's conjecture (a special case of the ABC conjecture) implies that (1) has only finitely many solutions. Generalizing Overholt's result (and \textit{A. Dąbrowski}'s result [Nieuw Arch. Wiskd., IV. Ser. 14, No. 3, 321--324 (1996; Zbl 0876.11015)]), the second author showed that the full ABC conjecture implies that the Diophantine equation \(n!=P(x)\) has only finitely many solutions [Glas. Mat. (3) 37, No. 2, 269--273 (2002; Zbl 1085.11023)]. The authors discuss some variants of the above Diophantine equations. Here are the main results of this paper (we write \(k\times n\) to mean that \(k\) does not divide \(n)\). Theorem 1. The Diophantine equation \(x^p\pm y^p=\prod^n_{k\times n,k=1}k\) admits only finitely many integer solutions \((x,y,p,n)\) with \(p\geq 3\) a prime number and \(\gcd(x,y)=1\). Theorem 2. Let \(P\in{\mathbb Q}[x]\) be a polynomial of degree \(\geq 2\). The ABC conjecture implies that the equation \(P(x)=\prod^n_{k \times n,k=1}k\) has only finitely many solutions \((x,n)\), where \(x\) is a rational number and \(n\) is a positive integer. They also prove the following generalization of a result of \textit{A. Dąbrowski} [loc. cit.]. Theorem 3. Let \(A\) be an integer which is not a perfect square. Then the Diophantine equation \(x^2-A= \prod^n_{k \times n,k=1}k\) has only finitely many solutions.
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    Brocard-Ramanujan problem
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    Diophantine equation involving factorials
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    ABC conjecture
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