Primes and Fibonacci?

Does there exist a nonconstant polynomial P ( x ) P(x) with integer coefficients such that for every Fibonacci number F n F_n , the value of P ( F n ) P(F_n) is a positive prime?

Clarification: The sequence of Fibonacci numbers F n F_n is defined by the following recursion: F 0 = 0 F_0=0 , F 1 = 1 F_1=1 , and F n = F n 1 + F n 2 F_n=F_{n-1}+F_{n-2} for every n > 1 n>1 .

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1 solution

Sándor Daróczi
Aug 27, 2017

We seek to prove the following lemma, from which the answer almost immediately follows:

Lemma: The Fibonacci sequence is periodic m o d n mod \ n for every positive integer n n .

Proof: Since F a F_a m o d n mod \ n can have at most n n different values, it follows that there are finite, namely at most n 2 n^2 possibilities m o d n mod \ n for the number pair ( F a , F a + 1 ) (F_a, F_{a+1}) . Therefore there exists a pair of integers ( k , l ) (k,l) with l > k l>k such that F k F l F_k \equiv F_l and F k + 1 F l + 1 F_{k+1} \equiv F_{l+1} m o d n mod \ n . Notice that from the definition of the Fibonacci sequence the values of F k + 2 F_{k+2} and F l + 2 F_{l+2} depend only upon the previous two terms m o d n mod \ n , so we must have F k + 2 F l + 2 F_{k+2} \equiv F_{l+2} . Inductively we arrive at the conclusion that F k + i F l + i F_{k+i} \equiv F_{l+i} for every nonnegative integer i i . Thinking backwards, the fact F a 1 = F a + 1 F a F_{a-1}=F_{a+1}-F_a yields the value of F a 1 F_{a-1} to depend only upon the next two terms, hence F k 1 F l 1 F_{k-1} \equiv F_{l-1} . Again, inductive reasoning implies that F k i F l i F_{k-i} \equiv F_{l-i} m o d n mod \ n for every nonnegative integer i k i \leq k . This and the previous conclusion clearly yield that the sequence F a F_a is periodic m o d n mod \ n with a period of at most l k l-k .

Let P ( x ) = i = 0 n a i x i P(x) = \displaystyle \sum_{i=0}^n a_ix^i . Observe that from the problem's condition P ( F 0 ) = P ( 0 ) = a 0 P(F_0) = P(0) = a_0 is a positive prime. For the sake of convenience set a 0 = p a_0 = p . Using the result of the lemma and the fact that F 0 0 ( m o d p ) F_0 \equiv 0 \pmod{p} we can deduce that F k 0 ( m o d p ) F_k \equiv 0 \pmod{p} for infinitely many nonnegative integer k k . Since all of the terms of P ( F k ) = i = 0 n a i F k i P(F_k) = \displaystyle \sum_{i=0}^n a_i{F_k}^i are divisible by p p and the value of P ( F k ) P(F_k) must be a positive prime, the only possibility is that P ( F k ) = p P(F_k)=p for infinitely many k k . However, this would imply that the polynomial P ( x ) p P(x)-p has infinitely many roots, which is a clear contradiction. Henceforth there does not exist any polynomial with the desired property.

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