Highly Heronian Ellipses

A triangle with integer edge lengths and integer area is 
called "Heronian", after the Greek mathematician Heron.  
Such triangles are also sometimes called "rational triangles", 
since any triangle with rational edges and area can obviously 
be scaled to give one with integer edges and area.  Of course, 
every ordinary Pythagorean triple (a,b,c) gives a rational 
triangle, since the area of this right triangle is simply 
ab/2.  (For example, the area of the familiar 3,4,5 triangle 
is 6.)  So, to make things interesting, we usually focus on 
triangles that are not right-angled.

Heron noted the example (13,14,15), which has an area of
84.  This can easily be computed using Heron's formula for
the area of a general triangle as a function of it's three
edge lengths a,b,c:

             1    _____________________________
       A =  ---  /(a+b+c)(-a+b+c)(a-b+c)(a+b-c)
             4

It's not hard to find infinite families of such triangles.
For example, in 598 AD Brahmagupta noted that for any integers 
a,b,c we have an oblique triangle with edges of length

               L1  =   (a^2 + b^2) c
               L2  =   (a^2 + c^2) b
               L3  =   (a^2 - bc)(b + c)

whose area is A = abc(b+c)(bc-a^2).  Gauss (as usual) went further 
and found that ALL Heronian triangles have edge lengths that can
essentially be expressed in the form

              L1 =   4abfg[a^2 + b^2]
              L2 = +-4ab(f+g)(fa^2 - gb^2)
              L3 =   4ab[(af)^2 + (bg)^2]

in which case the radius of the circumscribing circle is

           R = (a^2 + b^2)[(af)^2 + (bg)^2]

Recall that the area of a triangle is L1*L2*L3/(4R) where R is the 
circumscribing radius.  Hence the area of Gauss' Heronian triangles
is
               A  =  |16(ab)^3 fg(f+g)(fa^2 - gb^2)|

It may be worth mentioning that if we define

      L1 = x + y        L2 = x + z         L3 = y + z

then from Heron's area formula the triangle is Heronian if an only
if  xyz(x+y+z)  is a square.

We can also find specialized Heronian triangles.  For example,
in 1722 the Japanese mathematician Nakane Genkei gave a recurrence 
for an infinite family of triangles with *consecutive* integer 
sides and integer areas (although it isn't clear if he completed 
the induction).

We'll derive Genkei's result below, but first let's consider
a slightly more general problem, namely, to find the Heronian
triangles whose edges a,b,c are in arithmetic progression, i.e., 
for some integers x and d we have the edge lengths

     a = x - d         b = x         c = x + d

Notice that if x and d have a greatest common factor g, then 
g divides each of a, b, and c, which implies that g appears 
to the 4th power inside the radical sign in Heron's formula, 
so it can be removed from the square root.  Thus, g^2 must 
divide A, so we need only consider primitive solutions, i.e., 
those with g=1.  In other words, we can assume that x and d 
have no common factor.  

Substituting into Heron's formula gives
                     ____________________
            4A   =  / (3x)(x+2d)(x)(x-2d)

Squaring both sides, we have

           (4A)^2  =  3x^2 [(x+2d)(x-2d)]

Since the left side is even, we know that x must be even,
so there is an integer y such that x=2y.  Also, by unique 
factorization of integers, it's clear from this equation 
that the quantity in [] brackets must be 3 times a square, 
which means there is an integer m such that

                (x+2d)(x-2d)  =  3m^2

Since x and d have no common factor, it's clear that the
two factors on the left are coprime except for a possible
common factor of 2 because x=2y.  It follows that m must
also be even, so we have an integer n such that m=2n.  
With these substitutions we have

                 y^2 - d^2 = 3n^2

in coprime integers y,d,n, which can be written as

                 d^2 + 3n^2 = y^2

The general solution of this Diophantine equation is

         p^2 - 3q^2                              p^2 + 3q^2
  |d| =  ----------       |n| = pq       |y|  =  ----------
             2                                        2

for odd integers p,q, or double these quantities if p and q
have opposite parity.  Therefore, with odd p,q we have

       |x| = (p^2 + 3q^2)        |d| = (p^2 - 3q^2)/2

For example, with p=q=1 this gives x=4,d=1, leading to the
Pythagorean triangle with edge lengths a=3,b=4,c=5.  On the
other hand, if p,q, have opposite parity we have

       |x| = 2(p^2 + 3q^2)       |d| = (p^2 - 3q^2)

The first example of this type is with p=2,q=1, which gives
x=14, d=1, leading to the original Heronian example a=13,b=14,
c=15.  In general, the case with p,q both odd gives

       a = (p^2 + 9q^2)/2
       b = p^2 + 3q^2            A =  3pq(p^2 + 3q^2)/2
       c = 3(p^2 + q^2)/2

whereas if p,q have opposite parity we have

        a =  p^2 + 9q^2
        b = 2p^2 + 6q^2          A = 6pq(p^2 + 3q^2)
        c = 3p^2 + 3q^2

Here's a table of all the Heronian triangles with edges in 
arithmetic progression and total perimeter less than 1000 
given by odd values of p and q:

   p    q      perimeter     a      b      c       Area
  ---  ---     ---------   ----   ----   ----     ------
    1    1        12          5      4      3          6
    1    3        84         41     28     15        126
    5   -1        84         17     28     39        210
    5    3       156         53     52     51       1170
    7    1       156         29     52     75        546
   -1    5       228        113     76     39        570
    7   -3       228         65     76     87       2394
    7    5       372        137    124    111       6510
   11    1       372         65    124    183       2046
    1    7       444        221    148     75       1554
   11   -3       444        101    148    195       7326
    5    7       516        233    172    111       9030
   13   -1       516         89    172    255       3354
   11    5       588        173    196    219      16170
   13    3       588        125    196    267      11466
   13   -5       732        197    244    291      23790
   -1    9       732        365    244    123       3294
   -5    9       804        377    268    159      18090
   11   -7       804        281    268    255      30954
    7    9       876        389    292    195      27594
   17   -1       876        149    292    435       7446
   13    7       948        305    316    327      43134
   17    3       948        185    316    447      24174

Notice that, with the exception of the case p=1,q=1, all 
the perimeters appear twice.  In each case we have (with 
an appropriate choice of signs)  p + q  equal to the same 
quantity, and the edge length b is the same for both.  These
two solutions correspond to the two roots of the combined
equations  p^2 + 3q^2 = b  and  p + q = n  for fixed values
of b and n.

The next solution set with odd p,q has four cases, with a 
perimeter of 1092 and b = 364:

   p    q     perimeter      a      b      c       Area
  ---  ---    ---------    ----   ----   ----     ------
    1   11      1092        545    364    183       6006
   17   -5      1092        257    364    471      46410
   11    9      1092        425    364    303      54054
   19    1      1092        185    364    543      10374

This is due to the fact that 1092 is expressible in the form
3(p^2 + 3q^2) in two distinct ways

   1092  =  3[(19)^2 + 3(1)^2]  =  3[(17)^2 + 3(5)^2]

which is due to the fact that it's divisible by two primes,
7 and 13, congruent to 1 mod 3.  These two expressions arise
from the different ways of multiplying out the product

       1092/3 = 364 = (2)^2 (91) = 4[7][13]

where
       7 = (2)^2 + 3(1)^2        13 = (1)^2 + 3(2)^2

using the ancient product rule for quadratic forms

 (x^2 + N y^2)(u^2 + N v^2) = (xu + Nyv)^2 + N(xv - yu)^2

                            = (xu - Nyv)^2 + N(xv + yu)^2

Thus, each distinct prime factor of the form 3k+1 doubles the 
number of distinct solutions (in general).  If we divide each 
of the perimeters in the above table by 3(4) we find

        7  13  19  31  37  43  7^2  61  ...

which are precisely the primes congruent to 1 mod 3 (or
squares of those primes), leading to the two solutions for
each perimeter.  When we reach perimeters, like 1092, that
are (12 times) the product of TWO distinct primes congruent
to 1 mod 3, we have 2^2 = 4 distinct solutions.  Likewise
when we reach the perimeter 12(7*13*19) = 20748 with THREE
distinct prime factors congruent to 1 mod 3 we expect to
find 2^3 = 8 distinct Heronion triangles with that perimeter,
and in fact we have

   p    q     perimeter      a      b      c        Area
  ---  ---    ---------    ----   ----   ----     --------
   17   47     20748      10085   6916   3747      8288826
   79  -15     20748       4133   6916   9699     12293190
   83   -3     20748       3485   6916  10347      2583126
   37   43     20748       9005   6916   4827     16505034
  -29   45     20748       9533   6916   4299     13538070
   53  -37     20748       7565   6916   6267     20343414
   71   25     20748       5333   6916   8499     18413850
   73   23     20748       5045   6916   8787     17417946

A geometrical way of looking at this is to imagine a planet in 
an elliptical orbit whose eccentricity is 1/2 and such that
the distance between the two foci of the orbit is 6919 units. 
If we trace out the locus of points relative to that fixed
line segment such that the sum of the distances from the two
foci is constant, we have an ellipse.  Thus we can imagine a
planet following an elliptical path such that the perimeter 
of the triangle formed by the planet and the two foci remains
constant at 20748 units.  The above solutions are then seen to 
determine the locations of 32 "Heronian points" on that ellipse
(because each of the 8 solutions appears in each of the four 
quadrants) such that the distances to the two foci are both 
integers AND the area of the triangle formed by the foci and 
that point is an integer.  This is illustrated in the figure 
below:



Moving on to the solutions given by values of p,q with opposite 
parity, we have the following table of solutions for perimeters
less than 1000:

    p    q     perimeter      a      b      c       Area
   ---  ---    ---------    ----   ----   ----    --------
    2    1        42         13     14     15         84
    1    2        78         37     26     15        156
    4    1       114         25     38     51        456
    2    3       186         85     62     39       1116
    5    2       222         61     74     87       2220
    4    3       258         97     86     75       3096
    1    4       294        145     98     51       1176
    7    2       366         85    122    159       5124
    8    1       402         73    134    195       3216
    5    4       438        169    146    123       8760
    2    5       474        229    158     87       4740
    8    3       546        145    182    219      13104
    4    5       546        241    182    123      10920
    7    4       582        193    194    195      16296
   10    1       618        109    206    303       6180
    1    6       654        325    218    111       3924
   10    3       762        181    254    327      22860
   11    2       798        157    266    375      17556
    5    6       798        349    266    183      23940
    8    5       834        289    278    267      33360
    2    7       906        445    302    159      12684
    7    6       942        373    314    255      39564
    4    7       978        457    326    195      27384

In these cases there are half as many solutions as in the
previous cases for any given number of distinct prime divisors
congruent to 1 mod 3, because there is only a single power of
2 in the perimeters.  Notice that we get double solutions with
perimeter of 546 and 798, each of which is divisible by two
distinct primes congruent to 1 mod 3.  Also, for each perimeter
with a double solution with p+q even, there is a single solution 
with half the perimeter with p+q odd.

Anyway, we could specialize still further and consider just
the Heronian triangles whose edge lengths are consecutive
integers (rather than just in arithmetic progression).  For
this we need to restrict the value of |d| to be 1.  Thus we
have
           p^2 - 3q^2   =   +-2     if p+q is even

           p^2 - 3q^2   =   +-1     if p+q is odd

These are Pell equations, and can be solved either by the
continued fraction for sqrt(3) or by recurrences.  The give
the infinite families of solutions

             p   q          p   q
            --- ---        --- ---
             1   1          2   1
             5   3          7   4
            19  11         26  15
            71  41         97  56
           265 153        362 209
             etc.           etc.

where each sequence of paramaters satisfies the linear 
recurrence s[n] = 4s[n-1] - s[n-2].  These sequences give,
alternately, the triangles

    p    q        a      b      c         area
   ---  ---      ---    ---    ---     ---------
    1    1         3      4      5            6
    2    1        13     14     15           84
    5    3        51     52     53         1170
    7    4       193    194    195        16296
   19   11       723    724    725       226974
   26   15      2701   2702   2703      3161340
   71   41     10083  10084  10085     44031786

The values of b in this combined sequence satisfy the recurrence 
b[n] = 4b[n-1] - b[n-2], and the areas satisfy the recurrence 
A[n] = 14A[n-1] - A[n-2].

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