English

Distribution of elements of a floor function set in arithmetical progression

Number Theory 2021-12-30 v1

Abstract

Let [t][t] be the integral part of the real number tt.The aim of this short note is to study the distribution of elements of the set S(x):={[xn]:1nx}\mathcal{S}(x) := \{[\frac{x}{n}] : 1\le n\le x\} in the arithmetical progression {a+dq}d0\{a+dq\}_{d\ge 0}.Our result is as follows: the asymptotic formula\begin{equation}\label{YW:result}S(x; q, a):= \sum_{\substack{m\in \mathcal{S}(x)\\ m\equiv a ({\rm mod}\,q)}} 1 = \frac{2\sqrt{x}}{q} + O((x/q)^{1/3}\log x)\end{equation}holds uniformly for x3x\ge 3, 1qx1/4/(logx)3/21\le q\le x^{1/4}/(\log x)^{3/2} and 1aq1\le a\le q,where the implied constant is absolute.The special case of \eqref{YW:result} with fixed qq and a=qa=q confirms a recent numeric test of Heyman.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2112.14427,
  title  = {Distribution of elements of a floor function set in arithmetical progression},
  author = {Yahui Yu and Jie Wu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2112.14427},
  year   = {2021}
}