English

On the distribution of Carmichael numbers

Number Theory 2013-11-13 v9

Abstract

Erd\H{o}s conjectured in 1956 that there are x1o(1)x^{1-o(1)} Carmichael numbers up to xx. Pomerance made this conjecture more precise and proposed that there are x1{1+o(1)}logloglogxloglogxx^{1-{\frac{\{1+o(1)\}\log\log\log x}{\log\log x}}} Carmichael numbers up to xx. At the time, his data tables up to 2510925 \cdot 10^{9} appeared to support his conjecture. However, Pinch extended this data and showed that up to 102110^{21}, Pomerance's conjecture did not appear well-supported. Thus, the purpose of this paper is two-fold. First, we build upon the work of Pomerance and others to present an alternate conjecture regarding the distribution of Carmichael numbers that fits proven bounds and is better supported by Pinch's new data. Second, we provide another conjecture concerning the distribution of Carmichael numbers that sharpens Pomerance's heuristic arguments. We also extend and update counts pertaining to pseudoprimes and Carmichael numbers, and discuss the distribution of One-Parameter Quadratic-Base Test pseudoprimes.

Cite

@article{arxiv.0906.3533,
  title  = {On the distribution of Carmichael numbers},
  author = {Aran Nayebi},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0906.3533},
  year   = {2013}
}

Comments

This paper has been withdrawn by the author because I do not believe the conjectures are plausible

R2 v1 2026-06-21T13:15:17.504Z