International Journal of Mathematics and Mathematical Sciences
Volume 2003 (2003), Issue 19, Pages 1185-1192
doi:10.1155/S016117120320418X
On a thin set of integers involving the largest prime factor function
1Département de Mathématiques et de Statistique, Université Laval, Québec, Québec G1K 7P4, Canada
2Département de Mathématiques et de Statistique, Université de Montréal, Québec, Montréal H3C 3J7, Canada
Received 22 April 2002
Copyright © 2003 Jean-Marie De Koninck and Nicolas Doyon. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
For each integer n≥2, let P(n) denote its largest prime factor. Let S:={n≥2:n does not divide P(n)!} and S(x):=#{n≤x:n∈S}. Erdős (1991) conjectured that S is a set of zero density. This was proved by Kastanas (1994) who established that S(x)=O(x/logx). Recently, Akbik (1999) proved that S(x)=O(x exp{−(1/4)logx}). In this paper, we show that S(x)=x exp{−(2+o(1))×log x log log x}. We also investigate small and large gaps among the elements of S and state some conjectures.