Translated sums of primitive sets (Q2131743)

The aim of this paper is to shed further light on the Erdős primitive set conjecture, which states that the primes maximize the quantity \(f(A) := \sum_{a \in A} \frac{1}{a \log a}\) among all primitive sets \(A\). Primitive sets are subsets of \(\mathbb{N}\) for which no member of \(A\) divides another. Here one investigates the relation of the primes \(\mathbb{N}_1\) with respect to the \(k\)-almost primes \(\mathbb{N}_k\) concerning the slightly altered statistic \(f(A,h) := \sum_{a \in A} \frac{1}{a (h + \log a)}\). It is shown that for \(h > h_2 \approx 1.04\) onwards, \(f(\mathbb{N}_1,h) < f(\mathbb{N}_2,h)\) and that \(f(\mathbb{N}_1,h_2) < f(\mathbb{N}_k,h_2)\) for all \(k > 2\). One also shows that for \(h > h_\infty \approx 0.27\) there are sufficiently large \(k\) for which \(f(\mathbb{N}_1,h) < f(\mathbb{N}_k,h)\). Moreover the numbers \(h_2\) and \(h_\infty\) are sharp with respect to the above claims.