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Introduction Recently I found an easy but interesting problem: Let $P(x)\in \mathbb{Z}[x]$ and $a_1,...,a_{2019}\in \mathbb{Z}$.If $P(a_1)=a_2,P(a_2)=a_3,...,P(a_{2018})=a_{2019},P(a_{2019})=P(a_1)$,prove that $a_1=a_2=...=a_{2019}$.

In fact we have:$$a_1-a_2|P(a_1)-P(a_2)=a_2-a_3$$ which gives that:$$a_1-a_2|a_2-a_3|...|a_{2019}-a_1|a_1-a_2$$ and we get the conclusion.

My idea My first idea wasn't that.I tried to prove that every high order integer fixed point of $P(x)$ is its first order fixed point,but I couldn't prove that and I didn't know if it's right .

Question For any given polynomial $P(x)\in \mathbb{Z}[x]$ with at least degree 1,are all its high order integer fixed points its first order fixed points?Give your proof or counterexample!

jdhejw
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Yes, an integer polynomial has no integer cycle of length more than $2$.

Let's give a quick proof of this result. Let $P \in \mathbb{Z}[X]$, and $a_0$, ..., $a_{k-1} \in \mathbb{Z}$ such that $$P(a_0)=a_1, \quad P(a_1)=a_2, \quad ... \quad P(a_{k-2})=a_{k-1}, \quad P(a_{k-1})=a_k$$

We define, for every $n \in \mathbb{N}$, $a_n = a_{(n \ \mathrm{mod}\ k)}$. We shall prove that either the sequence $(a_n)_{n \in \mathbb{N}}$ is constant, either it is $2-$periodic.

For each $i \in \mathbb{N}$, one has $a_{i+2}-a_{i+1} = P(a_{i+1})-P(a_{i}) = (a_{i+1}-a_i) R_i$ for a certain integer $R_i$, with $R_i=R_{(i \ \mathrm{mod}\ k)}$ since the sequence $(a_i)_{i \in \mathbb{N}}$ is $k-$periodic.

Thus, il follows by induction that for every $n \in \mathbb{N}$, one has $$a_{n+k+1}-a_{n+k} = (a_{n+1}-a_n) \prod_{i=0}^{k-1} R_i$$

But one has $a_{n+k+1}-a_{n+k} = a_{n+1}-a_{n}$ so $$(a_{n+1}-a_n) \prod_{i=0}^{k-1} R_i = a_{n+1}-a_n$$

so either $a_{n+1}=a_n$, either $\displaystyle \prod_{i=0}^{k-1} R_i = 1$.

The first case leads to the fact that $(a_n)_{n \in \mathbb{N}}$ is constant, so we can assume that $\displaystyle \prod_{i=0}^{k-1} R_i = 1$ : we deduce that for every $i \in \mathbb{N}$, $R_i = \pm 1$.

If one has $R_i=1$ for every $i \in \mathbb{N}$, then it means that $a_{i+2}-a_{i+1}=a_{i+1}-a_i$ : since the sequence $(a_n)_{n \in \mathbb{N}}$ is $k-periodic, then it implies that it is constant.

If one has $R_i=-1$ for an integer $i \in \mathbb{N}$, then for this $i$, one has $a_{i+2}-a_{i+1} = -(a_{i+1}-a_i)= a_i-a_{i+1}$ and hence, $a_{i+2}=a_i$ and the sequence is $2-$periodic.

TheSilverDoe
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