English

On Sequences Containing at Most 4 Pairwise Coprime Integers

Number Theory 2014-09-16 v2

Abstract

Let f(n,k)f(n,k) be the largest number of positive integers not exceeding nn from which one cannot select k+1k+1 pairwise coprime integers, and let E(n,k)E(n,k) be the set of positive integers which do not exceed nn and can be divided by at least one of p1,p2,...,pkp_1, p_2,..., p_k, where pip_i is the ii-th prime. In 1962, P. Erd\H os conjectured that f(n,k)=E(n,k)f(n,k)=|E(n,k)| for all npkn\ge p_k. In 1973, S. L. G. Choi proved that the conjecture is true for k=3k=3. In 1994, Ahlswede and Kachatrian disproved the conjecture for k=212k=212. In this paper we prove that, for n49n\ge 49, if A(n,4) is a set of positive integers not exceeding nn from which one cannot select 5 pairwise coprime integers and A(n,4)E(n,4)|A(n,4)|\ge |E(n,4)|, then A(n,4)=E(n,4)A(n,4)=E(n,4). In particular, the conjecture is true for k=4. Several open problems and conjectures are posed for further research.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1101.0050,
  title  = {On Sequences Containing at Most 4 Pairwise Coprime Integers},
  author = {Yong-Gao Chen and Xiao-Feng Zhou},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1101.0050},
  year   = {2014}
}

Comments

17 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-21T17:05:34.904Z