On multiplicative magic squares (Q2380419)

An additive magic square is a matrix with positive integer entries in which all row, column and diagonal sums are equal. A multiplicative magic square is defined analogously, with sums replaced by products. The study of multiplicative magic squares is related to (a multidimensional version of) certain problems regarding the distribution of divisors of a positive integers. If the dimension of the matrix is 3, the authors show that the difference between the largest entry \(x_M\) of a multiplicative magic square with distinct entries and its smallest entry \(x_m\) is bounded below by \(x_m^{3/4}\). This bound is proved using the connection with additive squares via exponentiation, and shown to be tight. For dimension 4, a lower bound of \(5^{5/12}x_m^{1/2}\) is obtained, which is tight up to a constant. Weaker results are shown for multiplicative magic squares of order 5 and higher. The paper contains several elementary but interesting open problems.