Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2019 / iii / Paper 150 / 2 / b / Solution

Suppose the sieve distribution has the formwhere $g$ is a multiplicative arithmetic function on squarefree integers and $0\le g(p)<1$. DefineThen the Selberg upper-bound sieve statesfor $1<D\le z$, with immaterial endpoint changes under other level conventions.

To construct the weights, putand setThen ${\lambda }_1=1$. If $\gcd (n,P(z))=1$, the divisor sum ${\sum }_{d\mid n}{\lambda }_d$ equals one, and henceSumming against $a_n$ and expanding givesThe Selberg diagonalization of the positive quadratic form givesFinally, grouping the error by $m=[d,e]$ gives at most $3^{\omega (m)}$ pairs $(d,e)$ for each squarefree $m$; using $|{\lambda }_d|\le 1$ yields the stated remainder.