Practical pretenders
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Abstract: Following Srinivasan, an integer ngeq 1 is called practical if every natural number in [1,n] can be written as a sum of distinct divisors of n. This motivates us to define f(n) as the largest integer with the property that all of 1, 2, 3,..., f(n) can be written as a sum of distinct divisors of n. (Thus, n is practical precisely when f(n)geq n.) We think of f(n) as measuring the "practicality" of n; large values of f correspond to numbers n which we term practical pretenders. Our first theorem describes the distribution of these impostors: Uniformly for 4 leq y leq x, #{nleq x: f(n)geq y} asymp frac{x}{log{y}}. This generalizes Saias's result that the count of practical numbers in [1,x] is asymp frac{x}{log{x}}. Next, we investigate the maximal order of f when restricted to non-practical inputs. Strengthening a theorem of Hausman and Shapiro, we show that every n > 3 for which f(n) geq sqrt{e^{gamma} nloglog{n}} is a practical number. Finally, we study the range of f. Call a number m belonging to the range of f an additive endpoint. We show that for each fixed A >0 and epsilon > 0, the number of additive endpoints in [1,x] is eventually smaller than x/(log{x})^A but larger than x^{1-epsilon}.
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