Does there exist a nonconstant polynomial with integer coefficients such that for every Fibonacci number , the value of is a positive prime?
Clarification: The sequence of Fibonacci numbers is defined by the following recursion: , , and for every .
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We seek to prove the following lemma, from which the answer almost immediately follows:
Lemma: The Fibonacci sequence is periodic m o d n for every positive integer n .
Proof: Since F a m o d n can have at most n different values, it follows that there are finite, namely at most n 2 possibilities m o d n for the number pair ( F a , F a + 1 ) . Therefore there exists a pair of integers ( k , l ) with l > k such that F k ≡ F l and F k + 1 ≡ F l + 1 m o d n . Notice that from the definition of the Fibonacci sequence the values of F k + 2 and F l + 2 depend only upon the previous two terms m o d n , so we must have F k + 2 ≡ F l + 2 . Inductively we arrive at the conclusion that F k + i ≡ F l + i for every nonnegative integer i . Thinking backwards, the fact F a − 1 = F a + 1 − F a yields the value of F a − 1 to depend only upon the next two terms, hence F k − 1 ≡ F l − 1 . Again, inductive reasoning implies that F k − i ≡ F l − i m o d n for every nonnegative integer i ≤ k . This and the previous conclusion clearly yield that the sequence F a is periodic m o d n with a period of at most l − k .
Let P ( x ) = i = 0 ∑ n a i x i . Observe that from the problem's condition P ( F 0 ) = P ( 0 ) = a 0 is a positive prime. For the sake of convenience set a 0 = p . Using the result of the lemma and the fact that F 0 ≡ 0 ( m o d p ) we can deduce that F k ≡ 0 ( m o d p ) for infinitely many nonnegative integer k . Since all of the terms of P ( F k ) = i = 0 ∑ n a i F k i are divisible by p and the value of P ( F k ) must be a positive prime, the only possibility is that P ( F k ) = p for infinitely many k . However, this would imply that the polynomial P ( x ) − p has infinitely many roots, which is a clear contradiction. Henceforth there does not exist any polynomial with the desired property.