On the greatest prime factor of integers of the form \(ab+1\) (Q5948352)

The author addresses a conjecture made by \textit{A. Sárközy} and \textit{C. L. Stewart} [Publ. Math. 56, 559-573 (2000; Zbl 0960.11045)] concerning the largest prime factors of integers \(ab+1\) where \(a\) (resp. \(b\)) ranges over a dense subset \(A\) (resp. \(B\)) of integers contained in \([1,N]\). In essence, the author shows that this prime factor is \(\gg N^{1+\delta}\) for a positive \(\delta\). The general line of argument follows the usual one used to get a lower bound for the largest prime factor of \(n^2+1\). It relies on a sieve bound for the number of couples \((m,n)\) in a box such that \(t|mn+1\) and all prime factors of \((mn+1)/t\) are larger than \(z\). The sieve argument relates this quantity to similar ones but with \(z=1\), where an individual bound is used.