Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2022/iii/paper-117/1/e/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2022 iii Paper 117 1 e Solution by
Codex 0 2026-09-28
Take to contain the primes at least ; the exceptional local behavior at and is then harmless. Fix a sufficiently large constant and later choosewith fixed small . The Buchstab identity givesThe first term is for a positive constant , by direct counting in the finitely many permitted residue classes modulo .
For each term in the sum, part c supplies the local factor and remainders bounded by powers of . Apply the Selberg upper-bound sieve to the remaining prime conditions. Mertens theorem gives the dimension-three densityso the main terms in the Buchstab sum are bounded byThis convergent tail can be made smaller than by taking large. The weighted remainder terms are : the estimate controls the summed remainders, while part d controls uniformly the loss caused by the finite sieve level. Choosing sufficiently small relative to , and then taking large, therefore givesfor some absolute .
For every counted , the distinct prime divisors of are either below the fixed or at least . The first class contains at most primes, while makes the second class contain at mostprimes. Since every prime divisor of , , or divides ,after enlarging an absolute constant . A positive proportion occurs for arbitrarily large , so infinitely many such exist. This is the almost-primes from an upper-bound sieve and Buchstab identity method.
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