An algorithm and estimates for the Erdős–Selfridge function

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

December 2020

Publication Title

Proceedings of the Fourteenth Algorithmic Number Theory Symposium (ANTS-XIV), Open Book Series

First Page

371

Last Page

385

DOI

https://doi.org/10.2140/obs.2020.4.371

Abstract

Let p(n) denote the smallest prime divisor of the integer n. Define the function g(k) to be the smallest integer >k+1 such that p((g(k)k))>k. We present a new algorithm to compute the value of g(k), and use it to both verify previous work and compute new values of g(k), with our current limit beingg(375)=12863999653788432184381680413559.We prove that our algorithm runs in time sublinear in g(k), and under the assumption of a reasonable heuristic, its running time isg(k)exp[−c(kloglogk)/(logk)2(1+o(1))] for c>0.

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