On smooth sets of integers

This work studies evenly distributed sets of integers—sets whose quantity within each interval is proportional to the size of the interval, up to a bounded additive deviation. Namely, for ρ,Δ∈R a set A of integers is (ρ,Δ)- smooth if for any interval I of integers; a set A is Δ-smooth if it is (ρ,Δ)-smooth for some real number ρ. The paper introduces the concept of Δ-smooth sets and studies their mathematical structure. It focuses on tools for constructing smooth sets having certain desirable properties and, in particular, on mathematical operations on these sets. Three additional papers by us are build on the work of this paper and present practical applications of smooth sets to common and well-studied scheduling problems.One of the above mathematical operations is composition of sets of natural numbers. For two infinite sets A,B⊆N, the composition of A and B is the subset D of A such that, for all i, the ith member of A is in D if and only if the ith member of N is in B. This operator enables the partition of a (ρ,Δ)-smooth set into two sets that are (ρ₁,Δ)-smooth and (ρ₂,Δ)-smooth, for any ρ₁,ρ₂ and Δ obeying some reasonable restrictions. Another powerful tool for constructing smooth sets is a one-to-one partial function f from the unit interval into the natural numbers having the property that any real interval X⊆[0,1) has a subinterval Y which is ‘very close’ to X s.t. f(Y) is (ρ,Δ)-smooth, where ρ is the length of Y and Δ is a small constant.     

Elementary and combinatorial methods for counting prime numbers

Although prime numbers are elementary objects in number theory, the first non-trivial results about their distribution in history rely on analytical methods (see [10]). It was a big surprise when Erd?s [5] and Selberg [12] discovered new proofs of the celebrated prime number theorem without the help of advanced tools from (complex) analysis. However, both approaches, which are not completely unrelated (see [8]), still make use of limits, in particular the real logarithm. In this article we shall introduce a rational logarithm without using any limit, and then derive classical results first due to Euler, Chebyshev and Mertens. Moreover, we revisit all necessary elementary results about prime numbers, sometimes proven in a more combinatorial fashion than usual.     

On small sets of integers

The Ramanujan Journal - An upper quasi-density on $$\mathbf{{H}}$$ (the integers or the non-negative integers) is a real-valued subadditive function $$\mu ^\star $$ defined on the whole power set...     

On certain other sets of integers

We show that if A ⊂ {1,...,N} contains no non-trivial three-term arithmetic progressions then |A| = O(N/log^3/4−o(1) N).     

On primitive sets of squarefree integers

Let PN(resp. P*N) be the family of the primitive subsets of f{1, 2, ... N } (resp. the squarefree integers not exceeding N). We prove the following conjecture (even in a more general form) of Pomerance and Sárközy ... In a new direction we obtain surprisingly sharp estimates for ... As a common generalization we present conjectures about ...     

On some random thin sets of integers

We show how different random thin sets of integers may have different behaviour. First, using a recent deviation inequality of Boucheron, Lugosi and Massart, we give a simpler proof of one of our results in Some new thin sets of integers in harmonic analysis, Journal d'Analyse Mathématique 86 (2002), 105-138, namely that there exist -Rider sets which are sets of uniform convergence and -sets for all but which are not Rosenthal sets. In a second part, we show, using an older result of Kashin and Tzafriri, that, for , the -Rider sets which we had constructed in that paper are almost surely not of uniform convergence.

     

Bases for sets of integers

We are interested in expressing each of a given set of non-negative integers as the sum of two members of a second set, the second set to be chosen as economically as possible.So let us call B a basis for A if to every a ∈ A there exist b, b′ ∈ B such that a = b + b′. We concern ourselves primarily with finite sets, A, since the results for infinite sets generally follow from these by the familiar process of condensation.     

On sets of integers with prescribed gaps

For a fixed setI of positive integers we consider the set of paths (p _o,...,p _k ) of arbitrary length satisfyingp _l –p _l–1I forl=2,...,k andp ₀=1,p _k =n. Equipping it with the uniform distribution, the random path lengthT _n is studied. Asymptotic expansions of the moments ofT _n are derived and its asymptotic normality is proved. The step lengthsp _l –p _l–1 are seen to follow asymptotically a restricted geometrical distribution. Analogous results are given for the free boundary case in which the values ofp ₀ andp _k are not specified. In the special caseI={m+1,m+2,...} (for some fixed m) we derive the exact distribution of a random m-gap subset of {1,...,n} and exhibit some connections to the theory of representations of natural numbers. A simple mechanism for generating a randomm-gap subset is also presented.     

On multiple sum and product sets of finite sets of integers

Let $\text{A?}\text{Z}$ be a finite set of integers of cardinality |A|=N?2. Given a positive integer k, denote kA (resp. A^(k)) the set of all sums (resp. products) of k elements of A. We prove that for all b>1, there exists k=k(b) such that max(|kA|,|A^(k)|)>N^b. This answers affirmably questions raised in Erd?s and Szemerédi (Stud. Pure Math., 1983, pp. 213–218), Elekes et al. (J. Number Theory 83 (2) (2002) 194–201) and recently, by S. Konjagin (private communication). The method is based on harmonic analysis techniques in the spirit of Chang (Ann. Math. 157 (2003) 939–957) and combinatorics on graphs. To cite this article: J. Bourgain, M.-C. Chang, C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris, Ser. I 337 (2003).     

On the additive completion of sets of integers

Denote by k = k(N) the least integer for which there exists integers b₁, b₂, …, b_k satisfying 0 ≤ b₁ ≤ b₂ ≤ … ≤ b_k ≤ N such that every integer in |1, N| can be written in the form i² + b_j. It is shown that for all sufficiently large N, k ≥ (1.147)√N.     

On sets of integers with the Schur property

We investigate sets of integers for which Rado and Schur theorems are true from the point of view of their local density. We establish the existence of locally sparse Rado and Schur sets in a strong sense.     

The union of minimal hitting sets: Parameterized combinatorial bounds and counting

A k-hitting set in a hypergraph is a set of at most k vertices that intersects all hyperedges. We study the union of all inclusion-minimal k-hitting sets in hypergraphs of rank r (where the rank is the maximum size of hyperedges). We show that this union is relevant for certain combinatorial inference problems and give worst-case bounds on its size, depending on r and k. For r=2 our result is tight, and for each r3 we have an asymptotically optimal bound and make progress regarding the constant factor. The exact worst-case size for r3 remains an open problem. We also propose an algorithm for counting all k-hitting sets in hypergraphs of rank r. Its asymptotic runtime matches the best one known for the much more special problem of finding one k-hitting set. The results are used for efficient counting of k-hitting sets that contain any particular vertex.