Let ${𝒫}_2$ denote a positive integer with at most $2$ prime factors, counted according to multiplicity. For integers $a$, $q$ such that $(a,q)=1$, let ${𝒫}_2(q,a)$ denote the least ${𝒫}_2$ in the arithmetic progression ${\{nq+a\}}_{n=1}^{\infty }$. It is proved that for sufficiently large $q$, we have $${𝒫}_2(q,a)\ll q^{1.825}.$$ This result constitutes an improvement upon that of J. Li, M. Zhang and Y. Cai (2023), who obtained ${𝒫}_2(q,a)\ll q^{1.8345}.$

Let λ denote Carmichael’s function, so λ(n) is the universal exponent for the multiplicative group modulo n. It is closely related to Euler’s φ-function, but we show here that the image of λ is much denser than the image of φ. In particular the number of λ-values to x exceeds $x/{\left(logx\right)}^{.36}$ for all large x, while for φ it is equal to $x/{\left(logx\right)}^{1+o\left(1\right)}$, an old result of Erdős. We also improve on an earlier result of the first author and Friedlander giving an upper bound for the distribution of λ-values.