A note on the greatest prime factors of Fermat numbers (Q1275868)

A prime divisor \(p\) of the Fermat number \(2^{2^m}+1\) satisfies \(p\equiv 1\pmod{2^{m+1}}\), and hence \(p>2^{m+1}\). The author proves that if \(m\geq 2^{18}\) then the largest such \(p\) exceeds \(m2^{m-4}\). The proof makes use of the Brun-Titchmarsh theorem on primes in an arithmetic progression, together with an application of the Gelfond-Baker method to obtain an explicit bound for the exponent of a prime factor of a number \(a_1^{b_1}\cdots a_n^{b_n}-1\) in terms of \(a_i,b_i\) and~\(n\).