Scott–Styer's conjecture on solutions to a ternary purely exponential Diophantine equation

Let N\mathbb{N} be the set of positive integers, and let aa, bb, and cc be fixed coprime positive integers with min{a,b,c}>1\min\{a,b,c\}>1, assumed not to be perfect powers. Let N(a,b,c)N(a,b,c) denote the number of solutions (x,y,z)N3(x,y,z)\in\mathbb{N}^3 to

ax+by=cz.a^x+b^y=c^z.

Scott–Styer's conjecture. If a<ba<b, then N(a,b,c)1N(a,b,c)\leq 1, apart from the thirteen explicitly listed exceptional cases and solutions in the source statement: the family N(2,2r1,2r+1)=2N(2,2^r-1,2^r+1)=2 for r2r\geq2, and the cases (2,3,11)(2,3,11), (2,3,35)(2,3,35), (2,3,259)(2,3,259), (2,5,3)(2,5,3), (2,5,133)(2,5,133), (2,7,3)(2,7,3), (2,89,91)(2,89,91), (2,91,8283)(2,91,8283), (3,5,2)(3,5,2), (3,10,13)(3,10,13), (3,13,2)(3,13,2), and (3,13,2200)(3,13,2200) with the displayed solution tuples. This conjecture seeks a complete finite description of when the equation has more than one solution; several upper-bound results are known, but the general assertion remains open.

Sources & referencesView supporting material

Primary source

Maohua Le, Reese Scott and Robert Styer, “On a conjecture concerning the number of solutions to a^x+b^y=c^z”, arXiv:2206.14032 (2022).

Progress summary

Never refreshed

Nothing recorded yet. Refresh searches the literature and the public web for attempts on this problem, and writes the first summary here.

Solutions 0

No solutions have been posted yet.