Sums and products with smooth numbers (Q531834)

For \(A\subseteq \mathbb{Z}\), let \[ A+A=\{ a_1+a_2 \mid a_1, a_2\in A\}, \quad AA=\{ a_1a_2 \mid a_1, a_2\in A\} . \] A famous conjecture of Erdős and Szemerédi says that, for any fixed \(\delta >0\), there exists a positive constant \(c(\delta )\) such that \(\max \{ |A+A|, |AA|\} \geq c(\delta ) |A|^{2-\delta } \) for any finite set \(A\) of \(\mathbb{Z}\). Up to now, the best known result is due to \textit{J. Solymosi} [Adv. Math. 222, No. 2, 402--408 (2009; Zbl 1254.11016)] replacing \(2-\delta \) by \(4/3-\delta\). Let \[ S(x,y)=\{ 1\leq n\leq x \mid n\in \mathbb{Z}, P^+(n)\leq y\} \;(2\leq y\leq x), \] where \(P^+(n)\) is the largest prime factor of \(n\). In this paper, the authors obtain many interesting results on \(|S(x,y)+S(x,y)|\) and \(|S(x,y)\cdot S(x,y)|\). In particular, they prove that (1) there exists a constant \(c>0\) such that \[ |S(x,y)+S(x,y)|\sim \frac 12 |S(x,y)|^2, \quad x\to +\infty \] holds uniformly for \(2\leq y\leq c\log x\); \[ |S(x,y)\cdot S(x,y)|=|S(x,y)|^{2+o(1)}\qquad\text{as}\;y/\log x\to +\infty,\quad x\to +\infty.\tag{2} \]