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Geometry Difficulty 8.0 National Olympiad, round 2 Find the answer

Given circle OO with radius RR, the inscribed triangle ABCABC is an acute scalene triangle, where ABAB is the largest side. AHA,BHB,CHCAH_A, BH_B,CH_C are heights on BC,CA,ABBC,CA,AB. Let DD be the symmetric point of HAH_A with respect to HBHCH_BH_C, EE be the symmetric point of HBH_B with respect to HAHCH_AH_C. PP is the intersection of AD,BEAD,BE, HH is the orthocentre of △ABC\triangle ABC. Prove: OP⋅OHOP\cdot OH is fixed, and find this value in terms of RR.

(Edited)

A number or a short expression. Fractions can be typed as 3/2, and spacing doesn't matter.

Solution

Given a circle O O with radius R R , and an inscribed acute scalene triangle ABC ABC where AB AB is the largest side, let AHA,BHB,CHC AH_A, BH_B, CH_C be the altitudes from A,B,C A, B, C to BC,CA,AB BC, CA, AB respectively. Let D D be the symmetric point of HA H_A with respect to HBHC H_BH_C , and E E be the symmetric point of HB H_B with respect to HAHC H_AH_C . Let P P be the intersection of AD AD and BE BE , and H H be the orthocenter of △ABC \triangle ABC . We aim to prove that OP⋅OH OP \cdot OH is fixed and find this value in terms of R R .

To solve this, we use complex numbers and the properties of the orthocenter and the circumcircle. Let the circumcircle of △ABC \triangle ABC be the unit circle in the complex plane. The orthocenter H H of △ABC \triangle ABC can be represented as h=a+b+c h = a + b + c , where a,b,c a, b, c are the complex numbers corresponding to the vertices A,B,C A, B, C respectively.

The feet of the altitudes HA,HB,HC H_A, H_B, H_C can be expressed as:
ha=12(a+b+c−bca), h_a = \frac{1}{2} \left( a + b + c - \frac{bc}{a} \right),
and similarly for hb h_b and hc h_c .

The point P P , which is the pole of H H with respect to the circumcircle, is given by:
p=1h‾=abcab+bc+ac. p = \frac{1}{\overline{h}} = \frac{abc}{ab + bc + ac}.

Next, we compute the symmetric points D D and E E . Let X X be the foot of the perpendicular from HA H_A to HBHC H_BH_C . Solving for X X using the properties of perpendiculars in the complex plane, we find:
2x=ha+hb+a2(hb−ha‾), 2x = h_a + h_b + a^2 (\overline{h_b - h_a}),
which simplifies to:
d=2x−ha=12(a+b+c−acb−abc+a3bc). d = 2x - h_a = \frac{1}{2} \left( a + b + c - \frac{ac}{b} - \frac{ab}{c} + \frac{a^3}{bc} \right).

We then show that D,A, D, A, and P P are collinear by computing:
d−ad−a‾=a−pa−p‾=a3(a+b+c)ab+ac+bc. \frac{d - a}{\overline{d - a}} = \frac{a - p}{\overline{a - p}} = \frac{a^3 (a + b + c)}{ab + ac + bc}.

Finally, since P P is the pole of H H with respect to the circumcircle, the product OP⋅OH OP \cdot OH is given by:
OP⋅OH=R2. OP \cdot OH = R^2.

Thus, the value of OP⋅OH OP \cdot OH is fixed and equals R2 R^2 .

The answer is: R2.\boxed{R^2}.

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Source: Omni-MATH, licensed Apache-2.0. Statement reproduced verbatim; metadata (topic, difficulty) added by this project.