October 8, 2009

For what value of $k$ does the equation $e^{2x}=k\sqrt{x}$ have exactly one solution?

Solution.   We first note that we can eliminate all negative values of $k$ since then the right-hand side of the given equation would be negative, while the left-hand side would be positive.

So $k>0$.  Let $a$ be a solution to the equation; that is, $e^{2a}=k\sqrt{a}$.  Because the curves will just touch at the single solution, they will have a common tangent at $x=a$.  Thus the curves $y=e^{2x}$ and $y=k\sqrt{x}$ have the same slope at $x=a$.  Therefore
2e^{2a}=\frac{k}{2\sqrt{a}}
Solving the two equations $e^{2a}=k\sqrt{a}$ and $2e^{2a}=k/(2\sqrt{a})$, we get
2e^{2a}=2k\sqrt{a} = \frac{k}{2\sqrt{a}} \Longrightarrow 2\sqrt{a} = \frac1{2\sqrt{a}} \Longrightarrow a = \textstyle\frac14
and $k=e^{2(1/4)}/\sqrt{1/4} = \sqrt{e}/(1/2) = 2\sqrt{e}$.