A lower bound for the two-variable Artin conjecture and prime divisors of recurrence sequences (Q1788084)

In this nice paper, the authors prove unconditional lower bounds for the function that counts primes related to the Artin conjecture. Until now, the available bounds in the literature were conditional on the Generalized Riemann Hypothesis and they were worked out by \textit{C. Hooley} [J. Reine Angew. Math. 225, 209--220 (1967; Zbl 0221.10048)] and \textit{P. Moree} and \textit{P. Stevenhagen} [J. Number Theory 85, No. 2, 291--304 (2000; Zbl 0966.11042)]). The paper under review shows that if \(a\) and \(b\) are any nonzero integers with \(|a|>1\), then there are at least \(c\log x\) primes \(p\le x\) (here, \(c>0\) is a constant depending on \(a\) and \(b\)) such that \(b\) belongs to the multiplicative subgroup generated by \(a\) modulo \(p\). They achieve this by giving a lower bound for the number of distinct primes of the product \[ \prod_{\substack{1\le n\le N\\ u_n\ne 0}} u_n, \] where \(\{u_n\}_{n\ge 0}\) is a non degenerate binary recurrent sequence. Their result is that the above product has at least \((1-1/{\sqrt{2}}-\varepsilon)N\) distinct prime factors once \(N>N(\varepsilon)\), where \(\varepsilon>0\) is arbitrary. In case \(\{u_n\}_{n\ne 0}\) is a Lucas sequence, the above lower bound can be improved to \(N-9\) with equality happening for a few values of \(N\) and the Lucas sequence \(\{u_n\}_{n\ge 0}\) of characteristic polynomial \(x^2-x+2\). The proofs use results from prior work of the authors, especially [\textit{R. Gupta} and the first author, Invent. Math. 78, 127--130 (1984; Zbl 0549.10037); the third author, J. Reine Angew. Math. 333, 12--31 (1982; Zbl 0475.10009); in: Number theory and related fields. In memory of Alf van der Poorten. Based on the proceedings of the international number theory conference, Newcastle, Australia, March 12--16, 2012. New York, NY: Springer. 341--359 (2013; Zbl 1315.11011)].