On \(X\)-coordinates of Pell equations which are repdigits (Q2221683)

Let \( b\ge 2 \) be an integer. A positive integer \( N \) is called a \textit{base \( b \) repdigit} provided it has one distinct digit its base \( b \)-representation. That is, \( N \) is of the form \begin{align*} N= a\left(\dfrac{b^m-1}{b-1}\right), \quad \text{with} \quad a\in \{1, 2, \ldots, b-1\}\quad \text{and} \quad m\ge 1. \end{align*} Let \( d\ge 2 \) be an integer that is square-free. It is well known that the Pell equation \( X^2-dY^2=\pm 1 \) has infinitely many positive integer solutions \( (X,Y) \). Furthermore, putting \( (X_1, Y_1) \) for the smallest positive solution, all the other solutions are of the form \( (X_n, Y_n) \) for some positive integer \( n \), where \begin{align*} X_n + Y_n \sqrt{d} = (X_1+Y_1\sqrt{d})^n. \end{align*} From this one can deduce that \begin{align*} X_n = \dfrac{(X_1+Y_1\sqrt{d})^n+(X_1-Y_1\sqrt{d})^n}{2} \quad \text{and} \quad Y_n = \dfrac{(X_1+Y_1\sqrt{d})^n-(X_1-Y_1\sqrt{d})^n}{2\sqrt{d}}. \end{align*} In the paper under review, the authors prove the following theorem, which is the main result in the paper. Theorem 1. Let \( b\ge 2 \) be an integer. Let \( d\ge 2 \) be an integer which is square-free and \( (X_n, Y_n) \) be the \( n \)th positive integer solution to the Pell equation \( X^2-dY^2=\pm 1 \). Assume that \( 1\le n_n< n_2 \) are such that \[X_{n_1}=a_1\left(\dfrac{b^{m_1}-1}{b-1}\right), \quad X_{n_2}=a_2\left(\dfrac{b^{m_2}-1}{b-1}\right) \quad \text{with} \quad a_1,a_2 \in\{1,2, \ldots, b-1\}. \tag{2}\] Then \( B:=\max\{n_1, m_1, n_2, m_2\} \) satisfies \( B\le 6\times 10^{27}(\log(2b))^{6} \). Furthermore, let \( b\in [2, 100] \). As a consequence of Theorem (2), in their computational part, the authors show that all positive integer solutions to the system of Diophantine equations (1) have \( 1\le n_1< n_2 \le 5 \) and \( d\in [2, 4095] \). To prove their results, the authors use a clever combination of techniques in Diophantine number theory, the usual properties of Pell equations, the theory of nonzero linear forms in logarithms of algebraic numbers à la Baker, and the reduction methods involving the theory of continued fractions as well as the LLL-algorithm. All numerical computations are done with the help of a computer program in \texttt{Mathematica}.