2016 USAMO Problems/Problem 2

Problem

Prove that for any positive integer $k,$ $\left(k^2\right)!\cdot\prod_{j=0}^{k-1}\frac{j!}{\left(j+k\right)!}$ is an integer.

Solution

Define $v_p(N)$ for all rational numbers $N$ and primes $p$ , where if $N=\frac{x}{y}$ , then $v_p(N)=v_p(x)-v_p(y)$ , and $v_p(x)$ is the greatest power of $p$ that divides $x$ for integer $x$ . Note that the expression(that we're trying to prove is an integer) is clearly rational, call it $N$ .

$v_p(N)=\sum_{i=1}^\infty \lfloor \frac{k^{2}}{p^{i}} \rfloor+\sum_{j=0}^{k-1} \sum_{i=1}^\infty \lfloor \frac{j}{p^{i}}\rfloor-\sum_{j=k}^{2k-1} \sum_{i=1}^\infty \lfloor \frac{j}{p^{i}} \rfloor$ , by Legendre. Clearly, $\lfloor{\frac{x}{p}}\rfloor={\frac{x-r(x,p)}{p}}$ , and $\sum_{i=0}^{k-1} r(i,m)\leq \sum_{i=k}^{2n-1} r(i,m)$ , where $r(i,m)$ is the remainder function(we take out groups of $m$ which are just permutations of numbers $1$ to $m$ until there are less than $m$ left, then we have $m$ distinct values, which the minimum sum is attained at $0$ to $k-1$ ). Thus, $v_p(N)=\sum_{m=p^{i}, i\in \mathbb{N}}-\frac{k^{2}}{m}+\lfloor{\frac{k^{2}}{m}}\rfloor-\frac{\sum_{i=0}^{k-1} r(i,m)-\sum_{i=k}^{2k-1} r(i,m)}{m} \geq \sum_{m=p^{i}, i\in \mathbb{N}} \lceil -\frac{k^{2}}{m}+\lfloor{\frac{k^{2}}{m}}\rfloor\rceil \geq 0$ , as the term in each summand is a sum of floors also and is clearly an integer.

2016 USAMO (Problems • Resources)
Preceded by Problem 1	Followed by Problem 3
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2016 USAMO Problems/Problem 2

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