The generalized Pillai equation $\pm r a^x \pm s b^y = c$

Abstract

In this paper we consider $N$, the number of solutions $(x,y,u,v)$ to the equation $ (-1)^u r a^x + (-1)^v s b^y = c$ in nonnegative integers $x, y$ and integers $u, v \in \{0,1\}$, for given integers $a>1$, $b>1$, $c>0$, $r>0$ and $s>0$. We show that $N \le 2$ when $\gcd(ra, sb) =1$ and $\min(x,y)>0$, except for a finite number of cases that can be found in a finite number of steps. For arbitrary $\gcd(ra, sb)$ and $\min(x,y) \ge 0$, we show that when $(u,v) = (0,1)$ we have $N \le 3$, with an infinite number of cases for which N=3.