Intermediate prime factors in specified subsets (Q6076268)

The authors study the \(\alpha\)-\emph{positioned prime factor} of a positive integer \(n\), and the the \emph{largest prime factor of} \(n\) \emph{not exceeding} \(y\). Let \(\Omega(n)\) denote the number of prime factors of \(n\), counted with multiplicity, and \[ p_1(n)\leq p_2(n)\leq\cdots\leq p_{\Omega(n)}(n) \] the ordered sequence of prime factors of \(n\). For \(0<\alpha<1\), they set \[ P^{(\alpha)}(n):=p_{\lceil \alpha \Omega(n)\rceil}, \] and \(P_{\leq y}(n)\) the largest prime factor of \(n\) bounded by \(y\) (where \(P_{\leq y}(n):=1\) if there is no such prime factor of \(n\)). The main results of this paper are concerned with the following two questions. \begin{itemize} \item[(i)] How often does \(P^{(\alpha)}\) (resp. \(P_{\leq y}(n)\)) lie in a prescribed set of prime numbers? \item[(ii)] How often can \(P^{(\alpha)}(n)\) be found in a given residue class? \end{itemize} The admissible sets \(\mathcal P\) of prime numbers allowed in Theorems~1.1 and~1.3 (corresponding to the first question) are subject to the asymptotic relation \[ \sum_{\substack{p\in(X,Y]\\ p\in\mathcal P}}\frac{\log p}p \sim\nu \sum_{p\in(X,Y]}\frac{\log p}p \] whenever \(Y/X\rightarrow\infty\), where \(\nu\in(0,1]\) is some constant. Given such a set of primes, the asymptotic density of the set of positive integers \(n\) such that \(P^{(\alpha)}(n)\in\mathcal P\) is given by \(\nu\) (Theorem~1.1), and for any function \(y(x)\) such that \(y(x)\rightarrow\infty\) as \(x\rightarrow \infty\), we have \(P_{\leq y}(n)\in \mathcal P\) for \(n\) in a set of asymptotic density \(\nu\) (Theorem~1.3). Theorem~1.5 is concerned with coprime residue classes \(a+q\mathbb Z\): for any \(\alpha\in(0,1)\), the number of \(n\leq x\) such that \[ P^{(\alpha)}(n)\equiv a\bmod q \] is given by \((1+o(1))x/\phi(x)\) as \(x\rightarrow\infty\), uniformly for \(q\) bounded by some explicit power of \(\log x\), and all \(a\).