On the Diophantine equation \(P_m=P_n^x+P_{n+1}^x\) with Padovan numbers (Q2116817)

Let \( \{P_n\}_{n\ge 0} \) be the sequence of \textit{Padovan numbers} given by the three term linear recurrence: \( P_0=0, P_1=P_2=1 \), and \( P_{n+3}=P_{n+1}+P_{n} \) for all \( n\ge 0 \). In the paper under review, the authors study the Diophantine equation \[ P_m=P_n^{x}+P_{n+1}^{x}, \tag{1} \] in nonnegative integers \( (m,n,x) \). In their study, the authors first classify the solutions: \( (m,n,x)\in \{(3,0,x), (5,2,x), (5,n,0), (n+3,n,1)\} \) as the trivial solutions to the Diophantine equation (1). The nontrivial solutions are classified in the following theorem, which is the main result in the paper. Theorem 1. All nontrivial solutions of the Diophantine equation (1) in nonnegative integers \( (m,n,x) \) are: \( (m,n,x)\in \{(8,3,2), (10,3,3), (12,4,3), (17,3,6)\} \). The proof of Theorem 1 follows from a clever combination of techniques in Diophantine number theory, the usual properties of the Padovan sequence, the theory of nonzero lower bounds for linear forms in logarithms of algebraic numbers, as well as the reduction procedure involving the theory of continued fractions. All numerical computations are done with the aid of a computer program in \texttt{Mathematica}.