Related papers: Solving the Odd Perfect Number Problem: Some New A…

Let $N$ be an odd perfect number. Then, Euler proved that there exist some integers $n, \alpha$ and a prime $q$ such that $N = n^{2}q^{\alpha}$, $q \nmid n$, and $q \equiv \alpha \equiv 1 \bmod 4$. In this note, we prove that the ratio…

In 1935, Erd\H{o}s proved that the sums $f_k=\sum_n 1/(n\log n)$, over integers $n$ with exactly $k$ prime factors, are bounded by an absolute constant, and in 1993 Zhang proved that $f_k$ is maximized by the prime sum $f_1=\sum_p 1/(p\log…

We establish an improved upper bound for the number of incidences between m points and n circles in three dimensions. The previous best known bound, originally established for the planar case and later extended to any dimension $\ge 2$, is…

We give a proof of the conjecture of Nelson and Nguyen [FOCS 2013] on the optimal dimension and sparsity of oblivious subspace embeddings, up to sub-polylogarithmic factors: For any $n\geq d$ and $\epsilon\geq d^{-O(1)}$, there is a random…

Let $p$ be an odd prime and let $f(x)=\sum_{i=1}^ka_ix^{p^{\alpha_i}+1}\in\Bbb F_{p^n}[x]$, where $0\le \alpha_1<...<\alpha_k$. We consider the exponential sum $S(f,n)=\sum_{x\in\Bbb F_{p^n}}e_n(f(x))$, where $e_n(y)=e^{2\pi…

Let $M_n$ and $T_n$ denote the $n$th Motzkin number and the $n$th central trinomial coefficient respectively. We prove that for any prime $p\ge 5$, \begin{align*} &\sum_{k=0}^{p-1}M_k^2\equiv…

We obtain an asymptotic formula on the Odlyzko-Stanley enumeration problem. Let $N_m^*(k,b)$ be the number of $k$-subsets $S\subseteq F_p^*$ such that $\sum_{x\in S}x^m=b$. If $m<p^{1-\delta}$, then there is a constant…

For "almost all" sufficiently large $N,$ satisfying necessary congruence conditions and $k\geq 2$, we show that there is an {\bf asymptotic formula} for the number of solutions of the equation \begin{align*} \begin{split}…

Let $\gamma$ be a bounded convex curve on a plane. Then $\sharp (\gamma\cap (\Z/n)^2)=o(n^{2/3})$. It streghtens the classical result of Jarn\'\i k (an upper estimate $O(n^{2/3})$) and disproves a conjecture of Vershik on existence of the…

If $ p_k(a,m,n) $ denotes the number of partitions of $n$ into $k$th powers with a number of parts that is congruent to $ a $ modulo $m,$ then $p_2(0,2,n)\sim p_2(1,2,n)$ and the sign of the difference $p_2(0,2,n)- p_k(1,2,n)$ alternates…

Let $k>2$ be a prime such that $2^k-1$ is a Mersenne prime. Let $n = 2^{\alpha-1}p$, where $\alpha>1$ and $p<3\cdot 2^{\alpha-1}-1$ is an odd prime. Continuing the work of Cai et al. and Jiang, we prove that $n\ |\ \sigma_k(n)$ if and only…

For the integer $ D=pq$ of the product of two distinct odd primes, we construct an elliptic curve $E_{2rD}:y^2=x^3-2rDx$ over $\mathbb Q$, where $r$ is a parameter dependent on the classes of $p$ and $q$ modulo 8, and show, under the parity…

In this paper, we prove several supercongruences conjectured by Z.-W. Sun ten years ago via certain strange hypergeometric identities. For example, for any prime $p>3$, we show that…

We present a novel conjecture concerning the additive representation of natural numbers using prime powers. Based on extensive computational verification, we conjecture that every integer n > 23 can be expressed as a sum of at most five…

Let $p$ be an odd prime and let $x$ be a $p$-adic integer. In this paper, we establish supercongruences for $$ \sum_{k=0}^{p-1}\frac{\binom{x}{k}\binom{x+k}{k}(-4)^k}{(dk+1)\binom{2k}{k}}\pmod{p^2} $$ and $$…

Let $\sigma(n)$ denote the sum of the positive divisors of $n$. We prove that for any positive integer $k$, there is a number $m$ for which the equation $\sigma(x)=m$ has exactly $k$ solutions, settling a conjecture of Sierpi\'nski from…

Let $D$ be a positive nonsquare integer, $p$ a prime number with $p \nmid D$, and $0< \sigma < 0.847$. We show that if the equation $x^2+D=p^n$ has a huge solution $(x_0,n_0)_{(p,\sigma)}$, then there exists an effectively computable…

In this paper we are mainly concerned with nontrivial positive solutions to the Dirichlet problem for the degenerate elliptic equation \begin{gather} -\frac{\partial^2 u}{\partial x^2} -\left|x\right|^{2k}\frac{\partial^2 u}{\partial…

Let $p>3$ be a prime and let $a$ be a positive integer. We show that if $p\equiv1\pmod 4$ or $a>1$ then $$\sum_{k=0}^{\lfloor\frac34p^a\rfloor}\frac{\binom{2k}k^2}{16^k}\equiv\l(\frac{-1}{p^a}\r)\pmod{p^3}$$ with $(-)$ the Jacobi symbol,…

This paper investigates the dynamics of the iterated sum-of-divisors function $\sigma_k(m)$ and its behaviour modulo $m$, motivated by classical questions on perfect and multiperfect numbers and by the congruences $\sigma_k(m) \equiv 0…