On elements of sumsets with many prime factors (Q1801588): Difference between revisions

Let \(\nu(n)\) be the number of distinct prime factors of \(n\). The following problem is studied in the paper. Having two finite sets of positive integers \({\mathcal A}\) and \({\mathcal B}\) how big is \(\nu(n)\) on the sumset \({\mathcal A}+{\mathcal B}\)? Suppose that \({\mathcal A}\) and \({\mathcal B}\) are subsets of \(\{n\leq N/2\}\). Then certainly \(\max\nu(a+b)\leq m\) where \(m=m(N)\) is the maximal value of \(\nu(n)\) for \(n\leq N\). It is shown that for dense sets this upper bound is almost attained, more precisely, for each \(\varepsilon>0\) there is a \(c(\varepsilon)\) such that if \(|{\mathcal A}| |{\mathcal B}|>\varepsilon N^2\) then we have \(\max\nu(a+b)>m- c(\varepsilon) \sqrt{m}\). It is also shown that this result is close to best possible. The proof has both probabilistic and combinatorial flavour.