The distribution of powerful integers of type 4 (Q5904023)

A natural number \(n\) is said to be powerful of type \(k\) if \(p^ k\) divides \(n\) whenever \(p\) is a prime divisor of \(n\). The asymptotic behaviour of the counting function for such numbers was first considered by \textit{P. Erdős} and \textit{G. Szekeres} [Acta Sci. Math. 7, 95--102 (1934; Zbl 0010.29402)]. For \(k=4\), let \(\Delta_ 4(x)\) be the associated error term, and let \[ \lambda_ 4=\inf \{\rho_ 4: \Delta_ 4(x)\ll x^{\rho_ 4}\}. \] \textit{P. T. Bateman} and \textit{E. Grosswald} [Ill. J. Math. 2, 88--98 (1958; Zbl 0079.07104)] first obtained the estimate \(\lambda_ 4\leq 1/6\), and a number of improvements have appeared since; for example, \textit{A. Ivić} and the reviewer [Ill. J. Math. 26, 576--590 (1982; Zbl 0484.10024)] and \textit{E. Krätzel} [Elementary and analytic theory of numbers, Banach Cent. Publ. 17, 337--369 (1985; Zbl 0595.10035)] gave \(\lambda_ 4\leq 3091/25981\) and \(\lambda_ 4\leq 21/187=0.1122...\) respectively. The problem is reduced to the estimation of a certain three-dimensional exponential sum, and the author proves that \(\lambda_ 4\leq 35/316=0.1107....\).