On the distribution of squarefree integers in arithmetic progressions (Q667621)

For \(x\geq 1\), a positive integer \(q\leq x\) and \(a\in(\mathbb {Z}/q\mathbb {Z})^\times\) consider the counting function \(S(x;q,a)\) that counts the number of square-free integers \(n\leq x\), \(n\equiv a\bmod{q}\), and the error term \(E(x;q,a)\) defined by \[ S(x;q,a) = \prod_{p\nmid q}\left(1-\frac{1}{p^2}\right)\frac{x}{q} + E(x;q,a). \] The author investigates the variance of the error term: \[ V(x;q) = \sum_{a\in(\mathbb {Z}/q\mathbb {Z})^\times} E(x;q,a)^2. \] The main result (Theorem 1) is that for every \(\varepsilon>0\) and \(q\leq x\) we have \[ V(x;q) \ll x^\varepsilon \left( x^{1/2} q^{1/2} + x q^{-1/2} \right), \] where the constant in the Vinogradow symbol depends on \(\varepsilon\) only. This implies \[ V(x;q) \ll x^{1+\varepsilon}q^{-1/2} \] in the range \(q\leq \sqrt{x}\) and \[ V(x;q) \ll x^{1/2+\varepsilon}q^{1/2} \] in the range \(\sqrt{x} \leq q \leq x\). The paper also includes a review of previous results and conjectures on this error term and variance, as well as the analogous quantities related to the prime number theorem. On this basis the author conjectures that \[ E(x;q,a)\ll x^{1/4+\varepsilon} q^{-1/4} \] for \(q\leq x\) and fixed \(\varepsilon\). Theorem 1 is shown to imply this for almost all \(a\) in terms of density.