On the number of prime factors of an integer (Q1109069)

The authors prove the remarkable asymptotic formula \[ (1)\quad \pi (x,k)=\frac{\rho^{-k} x^{\alpha} F(\rho,\alpha)}{(\log x) kw(k) w(\rho)}(1+O(1/L)), \] which is uniform for \(x\geq x_ 0\), \(1\leq k\ll (\log x)/(\log \log x)^ 2\), where \(\pi\) (x,k) denotes the number of integers \(1\leq n\leq x\) which have exactly k distinct prime factors. Further notation in (1) is as follows: \(F(z,s)=\prod_{p}(1+z/(p^ s- 1))\), \(L=\log (\frac{\log x}{k \log (k+1)})\), \(w(t)=\Gamma (t)(t/e)^{- t}\) \((t>0)\), \(\rho\) and \(\alpha\) are the (unique) solution of \[ (2)\quad \sum_{p}\frac{1}{p^{\alpha}-1+\rho}=\frac{k}{\rho},\quad \sum_{p}\frac{\rho \log p}{(1-p^{-\alpha})(p^{\alpha}-1+\rho)}=\log x, \] the product and sums being over all primes p. The basic idea of the proof is to use the standard formulae \[ (3)\quad \pi (x,k)=(1/2\pi i)\int_{| z| =r}(\sum_{n\leq x}z^{\omega (n)})\quad z^{-k- 1} dz, \] \[ \sum_{n\leq x}z^{\omega (n)}=(1/2\pi i)\int^{\sigma +i\infty}_{\sigma -i\infty}F(z,s)(x^ s/s) ds, \] where \(r>0\), \(\sigma >1\) are parameters to be chosen and \(\omega\) (n) is the number of distinct prime divisors of n. \textit{A. Selberg} [J. Indian Math. Soc., New Ser. 18, 83-87 (1954; Zbl 0057.285)] chose \(r=(k-1)/\log \log x,\) \(\sigma =2\) and obtained \[ (4)\quad \pi (x,k)=F(\frac{k}{\log \log x})\frac{x}{\log x}\cdot \frac{(\log \log x)^{k-1}}{(k- 1)!}(1+O(\frac{1}{\log \log x})) \] (1\(\leq k\leq C \log \log x)\), where \(C>0\) is arbitrary but fixed, and \[ F(z)=\frac{1}{\Gamma (z+1)}\prod_{p}(1+\frac{z}{p-1})(1-\frac{1}{p})^ z. \] In accordance with the ideas used in their important work on integers without large prime factors [Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 296, 265-290 (1986; Zbl 0601.10028)] the authors use the saddle-point technique and choose \(r=\rho\), \(\sigma =\alpha\) (the solution of (2)). In a series of lemmas they develop the estimates needed to deduce (1) from (3), and in particular they evaluate asymptotically \(\rho\) and \(\alpha\) in Lemma 6. This enables them to recover (4) from (1), and to improve the recent results of \textit{C. Pomerance} [Number Theory, Proc. 4th Matsci. Conf., Ooatacamund 1984, Lect. Notes Math. 1122, 173-200 (1985; Zbl 0565.10038)] and \textit{D. Hensley} [Proc. Lond. Math. Soc., III. Ser. 54, 412-444 (1987; Zbl 0588.10047)] on \(\pi\) (x,k), who independently obtained good results in the range \(k\gg \log \log x.\) The authors also evaluate the quotients \(\pi (x,k+1)/\pi (x,k)\) and \(\pi\) (\(\lambda\) x,k)/(\(\lambda\) \(\pi\) (x,k)) uniformly in the range \(1\leq \lambda \leq x\), \(1\leq k\ll \log x/(\log \log x)^ 2\). Thus except in the range \[ \log x/(\log \log x)^ 2\quad \ll \quad k\quad \leq \quad (1+o(1))\log x/\log \log x \] the authors successfully solve the problem of the asymptotic formula for \(\pi\) (x,k). It may be mentioned that \textit{P. Erdős} and \textit{J.-L. Nicolas} [Enseign. Math., II. Sér. 27, 3-27 (1981; Zbl 0466.10037)] showed that the number of \(n\leq x\) for which \(\omega (n)>c \log x/\log \log x\) for \(0<c<1\) fixed is \(x^{1-c+o(1)}\) as \(x\to \infty\).