New proof and generalization of some results on translated sums over \(k\)-almost primes (Q6550993)

The aim of this paper is to study the statistic \(f(A,h)= \sum_{a \in A} \frac{1}{a (h + \log a)}\) that is related to the one appearing in the Erdös primitive set conjecture (which is now a theorem [\textit{J. Lichtman}, Forum Math. Pi 11, Paper No. e18, 21 p. (2023; Zbl. 1535.11033)]).\N\NIn this article one investigates for \(k \geq 2\) the optimal \(h_k\) such that \(f(\mathbb{N}_k,h) \geq f(\mathbb{N}_1,h)\) for all \(h \geq h_k\). Here the set \(\mathbb{N}_k\) denotes the \(k\)-almost primes and \(\mathbb{N}_1\) the primes. For \(k = 2\), the quantity \(h_2 \approx 1.04\) was already computed by \textit{J. Lichtman} [C. R., Math., Acad. Sci. Paris 360, 409--414 (2022; Zbl. 1500.11067)]. The present article computes this quantity with different methods and generalizes to larger \(k\).