English

On the Erd\H{o}s primitive set conjecture in function fields

Number Theory 2020-07-07 v1

Abstract

Erd\H{o}s proved that F(A):=aA1aloga\mathcal{F}(A) := \sum_{a \in A}\frac{1}{a\log a} converges for any primitive set of integers AA and later conjectured this sum is maximized when AA is the set of primes. Banks and Martin further conjectured that F(P1)>>F(Pk)>F(Pk+1)>\mathcal{F}(\mathcal{P}_1) > \ldots > \mathcal{F}(\mathcal{P}_k) > \mathcal{F}(\mathcal{P}_{k+1}) > \ldots, where Pj\mathcal{P}_j is the set of integers with jj prime factors counting multiplicity, though this was recently disproven by Lichtman. We consider the corresponding problems over the function field Fq[x]\mathbb{F}_q[x], investigating the sum F(A):=fA1degfqdegf\mathcal{F}(A) := \sum_{f \in A} \frac{1}{\text{deg} f \cdot q^{\text{deg} f}}. We establish a uniform bound for F(A)\mathcal{F}(A) over all primitive sets of polynomials AFq[x]A \subset \mathbb{F}_q[x] and conjecture that it is maximized by the set of monic irreducible polynomials. We find that the analogue of the Banks-Martin conjecture is false for q=2,3q = 2, 3, and 44, but we find computational evidence that it holds for q>4q > 4.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2007.02301,
  title  = {On the Erd\H{o}s primitive set conjecture in function fields},
  author = {Andrés Gómez-Colunga and Charlotte Kavaler and Nathan McNew and Mirilla Zhu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2007.02301},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

20 pages, 1 table

R2 v1 2026-06-23T16:51:43.879Z