Product representations of polynomials (Q850085): Difference between revisions

This very interesting paper studies the following problem: for each fixed polynomial \(f\in Z[X]\) what is the maximal size \(\rho_k(N)\) of a subset \(A\subset [1,\dots,n]\) such that no product of \(k\) distinct elements of \(A\) is in the value set of \(f.\) The problem was initiated by Erdős, Sárközy and Sós in 1995. The author describes the asymptotic behaviour of this function. As it turns out, this depends on whether \(f\in Z[X]\) is \textit{\(k\)-intersective}, that is whether the equation \(f(x)=y^k\mod p\) has a solution for all choices of positive integers \(y\) and \(p.\) The proofs use several non-trivial results from Number Theory.