On Sieve method and Goldbach problem
Let denote an almost-prime with at most prime factors, counted according to multiplicity. Suppose that and are positive integers satisfying . Denote by the least almost-prime which satisfies . It is proved that for sufficiently large , there holds This result constitutes an improvement upon that of Iwaniec (1982), who obtained the same conclusion, but for the range in place of .
Let denote a positive integer with at most prime factors, counted according to multiplicity. For integers , such that , let denote the least in the arithmetic progression . It is proved that for sufficiently large , we have This result constitutes an improvement upon that of J. Li, M. Zhang and Y. Cai (2023), who obtained
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 for all large x, while for φ it is equal to , 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.