On the Diophantine equation \(\binom{n}{k} = \binom{m}{l} + d\) (Q2009174)

In this paper, the solutions of the Diophantine equation \(\binom{n}{k}=\binom{m}{l} + d\), in positive integers \(n\) and \(m\) are studied. First, suppose that \(p\) is a prime \(> 4\) \((k, l) = (2, 4)\), \(d\in \mathbb{Z}\), 3 is a quadratic non-residue modulo \(p\), and the \(p\)-adic valuation of \(12d + 1\) is odd. Then, it is proved that the congruence \(\binom{n}{k}\equiv\binom{m}{l}+d \pmod p\) has no solution, and so the above Diophantine equation has no solution for \((k, l) = (2, 4)\), and \(d \in \mathbb{Z}\). Next, using elementary methods, all integral solutions of the Diophantine equation, with \(l = k \in \{3, 4, 5\}\), and \(d \in\{1, 2, \ldots , 20\}\) are computed. The cases where \( d \in \{-3, \ldots , 3\}\) and \(n \geq k\), \(m \geq l\) are reduced to the computation of integral points of some elliptic curves, and so, all solutions of the above equation are computed. Finally, all integral solutions of the equation with \(d \in \{-3,\ldots, 3\}\), \(k = 2\), \(l = 5\) are computed, by reduction of this problem to the same problem for some curves of genus 2.