Explicit bounds for large gaps between squarefree integers (Q6048615)

The squarefree numbers form a positive proportion of all integers so we expect to find them in all intervals of a relative small length. The paper investigates the following question. Find a function \(y(x)\) such that for all \(x\ge 2\), the interval \([x,x+y(x)]\) contains a squarefree integer. The same question with squarefree replaced by cubefree. The authors show that \(y(x)=11 x^{1/5}\log x\) is an acceptable choice for squarefree integers. The coefficient \(11\) can be replaced by \(5,~2\) or \(1\) but only for \(x\ge x_0\), where \(x_0=e^{400},~e^{1800}\) and \(e^{500000}\), respectively. In the case of cubreefree integers, an acceptable choice for all \(x\ge 2\) is \(y(x)=5x^{1/7}\log x\). The most important ingredient of the proof is finding good upper bounds on the quantity \[ S(M,N)=\left\{u\in {\mathbb Z}: M<u\le N, \gcd(u,2)=1,~1-\frac{h}{u^2}\le \left\{\frac{x}{u^2}\right\}<1\right\} \] for suitable parameters \(h,~M,~N\) depending on \(x\).