A special case of the quadratic Diophantine equation having the form

(1)

where  is a nonsquare natural number (Dickson 2005). The equation

(2)

arising in the computation of fundamental units is sometimes also called the Pell equation (Dörrie 1965, Itô 1987), and Dörrie calls the positive form of (2) the Fermat difference equation. While Fermat deserves credit for being the first to extensively study the equation, the erroneous attribution to Pell was perpetrated by none other than Euler himself (Nagell 1951, p. 197; Burton 1989; Dickson 2005, p. 341). The Pell equation was also solved by the Indian mathematician Bhaskara. Pell equations are extremely important in number theory, and arise in the investigation of numbers which are figurate in more than one way, for example, simultaneously square and triangular.

The equation has an obvious generalization to the Pell-like equation

(3)

as well as the general second-order bivariate Diophantine equation

(4)

However, several different techniques are required to solve this equation for arbitrary values of , , and . The Wolfram Language command Reduce[f[x, y] && Element[x|y, Integers]] finds solutions to the general equation (4) when they exist.

Pell equations of the form (1), as well as certain cases of the analogous equation with a minus sign on the right,

(5)

can be solved by finding the continued fraction  of . Note that although the equation (5) is solvable for only certain values of , the continued fraction technique provides solutions when they exist, and always in the case of (1), for which a solution always exists. A necessary condition that (5) be solvable is that all odd prime factors of  be of the form , and that  cannot be doubly even (i.e., divisible by 4). However, these conditions are not sufficient for a solution to exist, as demonstrated by the equation , which has no solutions in integers (Nagell 1951, pp. 201 and 204).

In all subsequent discussion, ignore the trivial solution , . Let  denote the th convergent , then we will have solved (1) or (5) if we can find a convergent which obeys the identity

(6)

Amazingly, this turns out to always be possible as a result of the fact that the continued fraction of a quadratic surd always becomes periodic at some term , where , i.e.,

(7)

To compute the continued fraction convergents to , use the usual recurrence relations

			(8)
			(9)
			(10)
			(11)
			(12)
			(13)
			(14)

where  is the floor function. For reasons to be explained shortly, also compute the two additional quantities  and  defined by

			(15)
			(16)
			(17)
			(18)
			(19)
			(20)
			(21)

Now, two important identities satisfied by continued fraction convergents are

(22)

(23)

(Beiler 1966, p. 262), so both linear

(24)

and quadratic

(25)

equations are solved simply by finding an appropriate continued fraction.

Let  be the term at which the continued fraction becomes periodic (which will always happen for a quadratic surd). For the Pell equation

(26)

with  odd,  is positive and the solution in terms of smallest integers is  and , where  is the th convergent. If  is even, then  is negative, but

(27)

so the solution in smallest integers is , . Summarizing,

(28)

The equation

(29)

can be solved analogously to the equation with  on the right side iff  is even, but has no solution if  is odd,

(30)

Given one solution  (which can be found as above), a whole family of solutions can be found by taking each side to the th power,

(31)

Factoring gives

(32)

and

			(33)
			(34)

which gives the family of solutions

			(35)
			(36)

These solutions also hold for

(37)

except that  can take on only odd values.

The following table gives the smallest integer solutions  to the Pell equation with constant  (Beiler 1966, p. 254). Square  are not included, since they would result in an equation of the form

(38)

which has no solutions (since the difference of two squares cannot be 1).

2	3	2	54	485	66
3	2	1	55	89	12
5	9	4	56	15	2
6	5	2	57	151	20
7	8	3	58	19603	2574
8	3	1	59	530	69
10	19	6	60	31	4
11	10	3	61	1766319049	226153980
12	7	2	62	63	8
13	649	180	63	8	1
14	15	4	65	129	16
15	4	1	66	65	8
17	33	8	67	48842	5967
18	17	4	68	33	4
19	170	39	69	7775	936
20	9	2	70	251	30
21	55	12	71	3480	413
22	197	42	72	17	2
23	24	5	73	2281249	267000
24	5	1	74	3699	430
26	51	10	75	26	3
27	26	5	76	57799	6630
28	127	24	77	351	40
29	9801	1820	78	53	6
30	11	2	79	80	9
31	1520	273	80	9	1
32	17	3	82	163	18
33	23	4	83	82	9
34	35	6	84	55	6
35	6	1	85	285769	30996
37	73	12	86	10405	1122
38	37	6	87	28	3
39	25	4	88	197	21
40	19	3	89	500001	53000
41	2049	320	90	19	2
42	13	2	91	1574	165
43	3482	531	92	1151	120
44	199	30	93	12151	1260
45	161	24	94	2143295	221064
46	24335	3588	95	39	4
47	48	7	96	49	5
48	7	1	97	62809633	6377352
50	99	14	98	99	10
51	50	7	99	10	1
52	649	90	101	201	20
53	66249	9100	102	101	10

The first few minimal values of  and  for nonsquare  are 3, 2, 9, 5, 8, 3, 19, 10, 7, 649, ... (OEIS A033313) and 2, 1, 4, 2, 3, 1, 6, 3, 2, 180, ... (OEIS A033317), respectively. The values of  having , 3, ... are 3, 2, 15, 6, 35, 12, 7, 5, 11, 30, ... (OEIS A033314) and the values of  having , 2, ... are 3, 2, 7, 5, 23, 10, 47, 17, 79, 26, ... (OEIS A033318). Values of the incrementally largest minimal  are 3, 9, 19, 649, 9801, 24335, 66249, ... (OEIS A033315) which occur at , 5, 10, 13, 29, 46, 53, 61, 109, 181, ... (OEIS A033316). Values of the incrementally largest minimal  are 2, 4, 6, 180, 1820, 3588, 9100, 226153980, ... (OEIS A033319), which occur at , 5, 10, 13, 29, 46, 53, 61, ... (OEIS A033316).

The more complicated Pell-like equation

(39)

with  has solution iff  is one of the values  for , 2, ...,  computed in the process of finding the convergents to  (where, as above,  is the term at which the continued fraction becomes periodic). If , the procedure is significantly more complicated (Beiler 1966, p. 265; Dickson 2005, pp. 387-388) and is discussed by Gérardin (1910) and Chrystal (1961).

Regardless of how it is found, if a single solution ,  to (39) is known, other solutions can be found. Let  and  be solutions to (39), and  and  solutions to the "unit" form

(40)

Then the identity

			(41)
			(42)

allows larger solutions  to the  equation to be found by using incrementally larger values of the , which can be easily computed using the standard technique for the Pell equation. Such a family of solutions does not necessarily generate all solutions, however. For example, the equation

(43)

has three distinct sets of fundamental solutions, , (13, 4), and (57, 18). Using (42), these generate the solutions shown in the following table, from which the set of all solutions (7, 2), (13, 4), (57, 18), (253, 80), (487, 154), (2163, 684), (9607, 3038), ... can be generated.

The case

(44)

can be reduced to the one above by multiplying through by ,

(45)

finding solutions in , and then selecting those for which  is an integer.

According to Dickson (2005, pp. 408 and 411), the equation

(46)

with , which has either no solutions or a finite number of solutions, was solved by Gauss in 1863 using the method of exclusions and considered by Euler (1773) and Nasimoff (1885), although Euler's methods were incomplete (Smith 1965; Dickson 2005, p. 378). According to Itô (1987), this equation can be solved completely using solutions to Pell's equation. Nasimoff (1885) applied Jacobi elliptic functions to express the number of solutions of this equation for  odd (Dickson 2005, p. 411). Additional discussion including the connection with elliptic functions is given in Dickson (2005, pp. 387-391).

The special case of  and  prime was solved by Cornacchia (Cornacchia 1908, Cox 1989, Wagon 1990). A deterministic algorithm for finding all primitive solutions to (46) for  fixed relatively prime integers, , and  was given by Hardy et al. (1990). This algorithm generalizes those of Hermite (1848), Serret (1848), Brillhart (1972), Cornacchia (1908), and Wilker (1980). It requires factorization of , and has worst case running time of , independent of  and . An algorithmic method for finding all solutions is implemented in the Wolfram Language as Reduce[x^2 + d y^2 == n, x, y, Integers].

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