Problem

Source: Estonia IMO TST 2016 p6

Tags: polynomial, Coloring, arcs, combinatorics, algebra



A circle is divided into arcs of equal size by $n$ points ($n \ge 1$). For any positive integer $x$, let $P_n(x)$ denote the number of possibilities for colouring all those points, using colours from $x$ given colours, so that any rotation of the colouring by $ i \cdot \frac{360^o}{n}$ , where i is a positive integer less than $n$, gives a colouring that differs from the original in at least one point. Prove that the function $P_n(x)$ is a polynomial with respect to $x$.