On a problem of P. Erdős (Q5905654)

For \(N\in\mathbb{N}\), let \({\mathcal M}\) be a \(k\)-element subset of \(\{1,\dots,[\sqrt {N}]\}\) with the property that its elements are pairwise coprime. P. Erdős asked the following question: if \({\mathcal A}\), \({\mathcal B}\) are subsets of \(\{1,\dots, N\}\) such that \(m\nmid a+b\) for every \(a\in{\mathcal A}\), \(b\in {\mathcal B}\), \(m\in {\mathcal M}\) then how large can \(|{\mathcal A}||{\mathcal B}|\) be in terms of \(N\) and \(k\)? In this interesting paper, the author proves the principal result that \(|{\mathcal A}||{\mathcal B}|\leq 4N^ 2/k^ 2\) and that this bound is almost optimal. An important ingredient in the proof is the large sieve. Several other variations including sharpenings and lower bounds in certain special cases are also proved.