Show that there is no pair of coprime positive integers $(x,y)$ such that $(x+y)^3 \mid (x^n+y^n)$

contest-mathelementary-number-theory

Let $n$ be a square-free integer. Show that there is no pair of coprime positive integers $(x,y)$ such that $$(x+y)^3 \Big| (x^n+y^n)$$

The problem can be apparently solved by LTE, but I don't know what are the cases to break it up to.

If I first take $n$ to be odd and $p >2$, then I need to assume that $p \mid x-y$ and now by LTE we get that $$v_p((x+y)^3)=3v_p(x+y) \le v_p(x^n+y^n)=v_p(x+y)+v_p(n) = v(x+y)+1$$ as $v_p(n)=1$ since $n$ was square-free. This implies that $2v_p(x+y) \le 1 \iff v_p(x+y) \le \frac12$ which is a contradiction.

I think I need to consider some other cases now such as $n$ being even and $p=2$ at least? How can I approach this one?

Best Answer

When $n$ is even, any odd prime $p$ dividing $x+y$ does not divide $x^n+y^n=x^n-y^n+2y^n$ because $p$ divides $x^n-y^n$ and $y$ and $p$ are coprime.

So remaining case is $y=2^k-x$ where $x$ is odd. When $n$ is odd, you can use LTE. When $n$ is even, you can show that $x^n+y^n$ can be divided by $2$ only once because $x,y$ are odd.