In a recent paper, Calkin et al. [N. Calkin, N. Drake, K. James, S. Law, P. Lee, D. Penniston and J. Radder, ‘Divisibility properties of the 5-regular and 13-regular partition functions’, Integers8 (2008), #A60] used the theory of modular forms to examine 5-regular partitions modulo 2 and 13-regular partitions modulo 2 and 3; they obtained and conjectured various results. In this note, we use nothing more than Jacobi’s triple product identity to obtain results for 5-regular partitions that are stronger than those obtained by Calkin and his collaborators. We find infinitely many Ramanujan-type congruences for b5(n), and we prove the striking result that the number of 5-regular partitions of the number n is even for at least 75% of the positive integers n.

Using the framework of overpartitions, we give a combinatorial interpretation and proof of the q-Bailey identity. We then deduce from this identity a couple of facts about overpartitions. We show that the method of proof of the q-Bailey identity also applies to the (first) q-Gauss identity.

Using elementary means, we derive an explicit formula for a3(n), the number of 3-core partitions of n, in terms of the prime factorization of 3n+1. Based on this result, we are able to prove several infinite families of arithmetic results involving a3(n), one of which specializes to the recent result of Baruah and Berndt which states that, for all n≥0, a3(4n+1)=a3(n).

Suppose that G is an abelian group and that A ⊂ G is finite and contains no non-trivial three-term arithmetic progressions. We show that |A+A| »ε|A|(log|A|)⅓−ε.

Erdős and Odlyzko proved that odd integers k such that k2n+1 is prime for some positive integer n have a positive lower density. In this paper, we characterize all arithmetic progressions in which natural numbers that can be expressed in the form (p−1)2−n (where p is a prime number) have a positive proportion. We also prove that an arithmetic progression consisting of odd numbers can be obtained from a covering system if and only if those integers in such a progression which can be expressed in the form (p−1)2−n have an asymptotic density of zero.

An asymptotic estimate is obtained for the number of partitions of the positive integer n into unequal parts coming from a sequence u, with each part greater than m, under suitable conditions on the sequence u. The estimate holds uniformly with respect to integers m such that 0 ≤ m ≤ n1−δ, as n → ∞, where δ is a given real number, such that 0 < δ < 1.

In this article we study some special problems of the additive number theory connected with an estimate of cardinality of a sum of two sets, which can be convex as well as non-convex sequences.

For the purpose of this paper, we call a set of positive reals ν a well-spaced set if there is a c > 0 such that

An asymptotic formula is established for the number of representations of a large integer as the sum of kth powers of natural numbers, in which each representation is counted with a homogeneous weight that de-emphasises the large solutions. Such an asymptotic formula necessarily fails when this weight is excessively light.

A partition of the positive integer n into distinct parts is a decreasing sequence of positive integers whose sum is n, and the number of such partitions is denoted by Q(n). If we adopt the convention that Q(0) = 1, then we have the generating function

Improved upper and lower bounds of the counting functions of the conceivable additive decomposition sets of the set of primes are established. Suppose that where, ℝ′ differs from the set of primes in finitely many elements only and .

It is shown that the counting functions A(x) of ℐ and B(x) of ℬ for sufficiently large x, satisfy

The set of integers represented as the sum of three cubes of natural numbers is widely expected to have positive density (see Hooley [7] for a discussion of this topic). Over the past six decades or so, the pursuit of an acceptable approximation to the latter statement has spawned much of the progress achieved in the theory of the Hardy-Littlewood method, so far as its application to Waring's problem for smaller exponents is concerned. Write R(N) for the number of positive integers not exceeding N which are the sum of three cubes of natural numbers.

§1. Introduction. Most prominent among the classical problems in additive number theory are those of Waring and Goldbach type. Although use of the Hardy–Littlewood method has brought admirable progress, the finer questions associated with such problems have yet to find satisfactory solutions. For example, while the ternary Goldbach problem was solved by Vinogradov as early as 1937 (see Vinogradov [16], [17]), the latter's methods permit one to establish merely that almost all even integers are the sum of two primes (see Chudakov [4], van der Corput [5] and Estermann [7]).

Let p(n) be the usual partition function. Let l be an odd prime, and let r (mod t) be any arithmetic progression. If there exists an integer n ≡ r (mod t) such that p(n) ≢ 0 (mod l), then, for large X,

As usual in Waring's problem, we let G(k) be the least number s such that all sufficiently large natural numbers can be written as the sum of s or fewer k-th powers of positive integers. Hardy and Littlewood gave the first general upper bound, G(k)≤(k − 2)2k − 1 + 5. Later [4], they reduced this to order k2 by first constructing an auxiliary set of natural numbers below x which are sums of sk-th powers, of cardinality with for large k. The argument, which is brief and elementary (see [15, Chapter 6]), is now referred to by R. C. Vaughan's term “diminishing ranges”, since the k-th powers are taken from intervals of decreasing lengths. This idea of choosing the variables from restricted ranges was refined by Vinogradov, whose application to exponential sum estimates gave for large k (see [18]). The recent iterative method of Vaughan and Wooley [16, 19, 21], which halves Vinogradov's bound, may be viewed as an evolved diminishing ranges argument, producing an auxiliary set with .

This is an expanded version of two lectures given at the conference held at Sydney University in December 1997 on the 50th anniversary of the death of G. H. Hardy.

Let (Sn)n = 1,2,… be the strictly increasing sequence of those natural numbers that can be represented as the sum of three cubes of positive integers. The estimate

is easily proved as follows: Let x1 be the largest natural number with Then This procedure is iterated by choosing x2 and then x3 as the largest natural numbers satisfying and Thus Since this implies (1).

On Waring's problem for cubes, it is conjectured that every sufficiently large natural number can be represented as a sum of four cubes of natural numbers. Denoting by E(N) the number of the natural numbers up to N that cannot be written as a sum of four cubes, we may express the conjecture as E(N)≪1.

In 1973, Montgomery [12] introduced, in order to study the vertical distribution of the zeros of the Riemann zeta function, the pair correlation function

where w(u) = 4/(4 + u2) and γjj = 1, 2, run over the imaginary part of the nontrivial zeros of ζ(s). It is easy to see that, for T → ∞,

uniformly in X, and Montgomery [12], see also Goldston-Montgomery [7], proved that under the Riemann Hypothesis (RH)

uniformly for X ≤ T ≤ XA, for any fixed A > 1. He also conjectured, under RH, that (1) holds uniformly for Xε ≤ T ≤ X, for every fixed ε > 0. We denote by MC the above conjecture.

Let s, k and n be positive integers and define rs,k(n) to be the number of solutions of the diophantine equation

in positive integers xi. In 1922, using their circle method, Hardy and Littlewood [2] established the asymptotic formula

whenever s≥(k−2)2k−1 + 5. Here , the singular series, relates the local solubility of (1.1). For each k we define to be the smallest value of s0 such that for all s ≥ s0 we have (1.2), the asymptotic formula in Waring's problem. The main result of this memoir is the following theorem which improves upon bounds of previous authors when k≤9.