ACADEMIA SABATINA JVENES TALENTOS

Meeting #21
Course: Teora de Nmeros.

Date: 23rd July 2016.

Group: Pre-olmpico.

Professor: Rolando
Vega.

PELLS EQUATION
INTRODUCTION:
Definition 1: Pells equation is a Diophantine equation of the form

x 2d y 2=1, x , y Z , where d is

a given natural number which is not a square. An equation of the form

x 2d y 2=a for an integer a

is usually referred to as a Pell-type equation.

An arbitrary quadratic Diophantine equation with two unknowns can be reduced to a Pell-type
equation. How can such equations be solved? Recall that the general solution of a linear diophantine
equation is a linear function of some parameters. This does not happen with general quadratic
diophantine equations. However, as we will see later, in the case of such equations with two
unknowns there still is a relatively simple formula describing the general solution.

Why does the definition of Pells equations assume d is not a square? Well, for
equation

x 2d y 2=a

can be factored as

( x+cy )( xcy )=a

d=c2 , c Z

the

and therefore solved without using any

further theory. So, unless noted otherwise, d will always be assumed not to be a square.
The equation

x 2d y 2=a

can still be factored as

( x+ y d ) ( x y d )=a
In order to be able to make use of this factorization, we must deal with numbers of the form
x+ y d , where x,y are integers. This set is denoted by

Z [d ].

An important property of this set

is that the sum and product of two of its elements remain in the set (i.e. this set is really a ring).
Definition 2: The conjugate of number
N ( Z )=Z . z =x 2d y 2 Z .

z=x + y d

is defined as

z =x y d , and its norm as

N ( z1 z 2) =N ( z 1 ) N ( z 2 )

Theorem 1. The norm and the conjugate are multiplicative in z:

and

z 1z 2 =

z1 z2 .
z0

Theorem 2: If
elements

is the minimal element of

z Z [ d ] with

Corollary. If

( x0, y0 )

N Z =1 are given by

z=x + y d

with

z 0> 1

and

N ( z 0) =1 , then all the

z= z0 , n Z .

is the smallest solution of the Pells equation with d given, then all natural

solutions (x,y) of the equation are given by

Note that

Z [d ]

x+ y d= ( x 0 + y 0 d ) , n N .

determines x and y by the formulas

x=

z + z
2 and

y=

zz
2 d

. Thus all the

solutions of the Pells equation are given by the formulas:

z n0 + zn0
x=
2

n
n
z 0 z0
y=
2 d

Lemma 1 (Dirichlets theorem). Let be an irrational number and n be a positive integer. There exist
p Z

and q {1,2,...,n} such that

| pq|< ( n+11 ) q

Lemma 2. If is an arbitrary real number, then there exist infinitely many pairs of positive integers

(p,q) satisfying

| pq|< q1

PELL-TYPE EQUATIONS:
A Pell-type equation in general may not have integer solutions (for example, the equation
2

x 3 y =2 ). When it does, it is possible to describe the general solution.

Theorem 4. Equation
with

z 12 =z0 .

x 2d y 2=1

has an integral solution if and only if there exists

z1 Z [ d ]

Theorem 5. If a is an integer such that the equation

z +1

N ( z ) =x2 d y 2 =a has an integer solution, then

0
there is a solution with |x| 2 z |a| and the corresponding upper bound for
0

y=

x2a
.
d