We show that if A is a finite K-approximate subgroup of an s-step nilpotent group then there is a finite normal subgroup $H \subset {A^{{K^{{O_s}(1)}}}}$ modulo which ${A^{{O_s}(\mathop {\log }\nolimits^{{O_s}(1)} K)}}$ contains a nilprogression of rank at most ${O_s}(\mathop {\log }\nolimits^{{O_s}(1)} K)$ and size at least $\exp ( - {O_s}(\mathop {\log }\nolimits^{{O_s}(1)} K))|A|$. This partially generalises the close-to-optimal bounds obtained in the abelian case by Sanders, and improves the bounds and simplifies the exposition of an earlier result of the author. Combined with results of Breuillard–Green, Breuillard–Green–Tao, Gill–Helfgott–Pyber–Szabó, and the author, this leads to improved rank bounds in Freiman-type theorems in residually nilpotent groups and certain linear groups of bounded degree.

We show that there is an absolute $c>0$ such that if $A$ is a finite set of integers, then there is a set $S\subset A$ of size at least $\log ^{1+c}|A|$ such that the restricted sumset $\{s+s^{\prime }:s,s^{\prime }\in S\text{ and }s\neq s^{\prime }\}$ is disjoint from $A$. (The logarithm here is to base $3$.)

We generalise a result of Chern [‘A curious identity and its applications to partitions with bounded part differences’, New Zealand J. Math. 47 (2017), 23–26] on distinct partitions with bounded difference between largest and smallest parts. The generalisation is proved both analytically and bijectively.

For positive integers $t_{1},\ldots ,t_{k}$, let $\tilde{p}(n,t_{1},t_{2},\ldots ,t_{k})$ (respectively $p(n,t_{1},t_{2},\ldots ,t_{k})$) be the number of partitions of $n$ such that, if $m$ is the smallest part, then each of $m+t_{1},m+t_{1}+t_{2},\ldots ,m+t_{1}+t_{2}+\cdots +t_{k-1}$ appears as a part and the largest part is at most (respectively equal to) $m+t_{1}+t_{2}+\cdots +t_{k}$. Andrews et al. [‘Partitions with fixed differences between largest and smallest parts’, Proc. Amer. Math. Soc.143 (2015), 4283–4289] found an explicit formula for the generating function of $p(n,t_{1},t_{2},\ldots ,t_{k})$. We establish a $q$-series identity from which the formulae for the generating functions of $\tilde{p}(n,t_{1},t_{2},\ldots ,t_{k})$ and $p(n,t_{1},t_{2},\ldots ,t_{k})$ can be obtained.

Our main result establishes Andrews’ conjecture for the asymptotic of the generating function for the number of integer partitions of $n$ without $k$ consecutive parts. The methods we develop are applicable in obtaining asymptotics for stochastic processes that avoid patterns; as a result they yield asymptotics for the number of partitions that avoid patterns.

Holroyd, Liggett, and Romik, in connection with certain bootstrap percolation models, introduced the study of partitions without $k$ consecutive parts. Andrews showed that when $k=2$, the generating function for these partitions is a mixed-mock modular form and, thus, has modularity properties which can be utilized in the study of this generating function. For $k>2$, the asymptotic properties of the generating functions have proved more difficult to obtain. Using $q$-series identities and the $k=2$ case as evidence, Andrews stated a conjecture for the asymptotic behavior. Extensive computational evidence for the conjecture in the case $k=3$ was given by Zagier.

This paper improved upon early approaches to this problem by identifying and overcoming two sources of error. Since the writing of this paper, a more precise asymptotic result was established by Bringmann, Kane, Parry, and Rhoades. That approach uses very different methods.

We improve some results in our paper [A. Languasco and A. Zaccagnini, ‘Short intervals asymptotic formulae for binary problems with prime powers’, J. Théor. Nombres Bordeaux 30 (2018) 609–635] about the asymptotic formulae in short intervals for the average number of representations of integers of the forms $n=p_{1}^{\ell _{1}}+p_{2}^{\ell _{2}}$ and $n=p^{\ell _{1}}+m^{\ell _{2}}$, where $\ell _{1},\ell _{2}\geq 2$ are fixed integers, $p,p_{1},p_{2}$ are prime numbers and $m$ is an integer. We also remark that the techniques here used let us prove that a suitable asymptotic formula for the average number of representations of integers $n=\sum _{i=1}^{s}p_{i}^{\ell }$, where $s$, $\ell$ are two integers such that $2\leq s\leq \ell -1$, $\ell \geq 3$ and $p_{i}$, $i=1,\ldots ,s$, are prime numbers, holds in short intervals.

A strongly concave composition of $n$ is an integer partition with strictly decreasing and then increasing parts. In this paper we give a uniform asymptotic formula for the rank statistic of a strongly concave composition introduced by Andrews et al. [‘Modularity of the concave composition generating function’, Algebra Number Theory7(9) (2013), 2103–2139].

In this paper we show that a polynomial equation admits infinitely many prime-tuple solutions, assuming only that the equation satisfies suitable local conditions and the polynomial is sufficiently non-degenerate algebraically. Our notion of algebraic non-degeneracy is related to the $h$-invariant introduced by W. M. Schmidt. Our results prove a conjecture by B. Cook and Á. Magyar for hypersurfaces of degree 3.

Let p(n) denote the partition function. In this paper, we will prove that for $n\ges 222$,

$$\left| {\matrix{ {p(n)} & {p(n + 1)} & {p(n + 2)} \cr {p(n-1)} & {p(n)} & {p(n + 1)} \cr {p(n-2)} & {p(n-1)} & {p(n)} \cr } } \right| > 0.{\rm }$$

$n\ges 222$

$$(p(n)^2-p(n-1)p(n+1))^2-(p(n-1)^2-p(n-2)p(n))(p(n+1)^2-p(n)p(n+2))>0.$$

In 2010, Hei-Chi Chan introduced the cubic partition function a(n) in connection with Ramanujan's cubic continued fraction. Chen and Lin, and Ahmed, Baruah and Dastidar proved that a(25n + 22) ≡ 0 (mod 5) for n ⩾ 0. In this paper, we prove several infinite families of congruences modulo 5 and 7 for a(n). Our results generalize the congruence a(25n + 22) ≡ 0 (mod 5) and four congruences modulo 7 for a(n) due to Chen and Lin. Moreover, we present some non-standard congruences modulo 5 for a(n) by using an identity of Newman. For example, we prove that $a((({15\times 17^{3\alpha }+1})/{8})) \equiv 3^{\alpha +1} \ ({\rm mod}\ 5)$ for α ⩾ 0.

We prove that, for any finite set $A\subset \mathbb{Q}$ with $|AA|\leqslant K|A|$ and any positive integer $k$, the $k$-fold product set of the shift $A+1$ satisfies the bound

$$\begin{eqnarray}|\{(a_{1}+1)(a_{2}+1)\cdots (a_{k}+1):a_{i}\in A\}|\geqslant \frac{|A|^{k}}{(8k^{4})^{kK}}.\end{eqnarray}$$

$K$

$c\log |A|$

$c=c(k)$

$\unicode[STIX]{x1D6EC}$

Let C be a set of positive integers. In this paper, we obtain an algorithm for computing all subsets A of positive integers which are minimals with the condition that if x1 + … + xn is a partition of an element in C, then at least a summand of this partition belongs to A. We use techniques of numerical semigroups to solve this problem because it is equivalent to give an algorithm that allows us to compute all the numerical semigroups which are maximals with the condition that has an empty intersection with the set C.

A subset $A$ of a finite abelian group $G$ is called $(k,l)$-sum-free if the sum of $k$ (not necessarily distinct) elements of $A$ never equals the sum of $l$ (not necessarily distinct) elements of $A$. We find an explicit formula for the maximum size of a $(k,l)$-sum-free subset in $G$ for all $k$ and $l$ in the case when $G$ is cyclic by proving that it suffices to consider $(k,l)$-sum-free intervals in subgroups of $G$. This simplifies and extends earlier results by Hamidoune and Plagne [‘A new critical pair theorem applied to sum-free sets in abelian groups’, Comment. Math. Helv. 79(1) (2004), 183–207] and Bajnok [‘On the maximum size of a $(k,l)$-sum-free subset of an abelian group’, Int. J. Number Theory 5(6) (2009), 953–971].

We give the generating function of split $(n+t)$-colour partitions and obtain an analogue of Euler’s identity for split $n$-colour partitions. We derive a combinatorial relation between the number of restricted split $n$-colour partitions and the function $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}_{k}(\unicode[STIX]{x1D707})=\sum _{d|\unicode[STIX]{x1D707}}d^{k}$. We introduce a new class of split perfect partitions with $d(a)$ copies of each part $a$ and extend the work of Agarwal and Subbarao [‘Some properties of perfect partitions’, Indian J. Pure Appl. Math 22(9) (1991), 737–743].

Let $p\equiv 1\hspace{0.2em}{\rm mod}\hspace{0.2em}4$ be a prime number. We use a number field variant of Vinogradov’s method to prove density results about the following four arithmetic invariants: (i) $16$-rank of the class group $\text{Cl}(-4p)$ of the imaginary quadratic number field $\mathbb{Q}(\sqrt{-4p})$; (ii) $8$-rank of the ordinary class group $\text{Cl}(8p)$ of the real quadratic field $\mathbb{Q}(\sqrt{8p})$; (iii) the solvability of the negative Pell equation $x^{2}-2py^{2}=-1$ over the integers; (iv) $2$-part of the Tate–Šafarevič group $\unicode[STIX]{x0428}(E_{p})$ of the congruent number elliptic curve $E_{p}:y^{2}=x^{3}-p^{2}x$. Our results are conditional on a standard conjecture about short character sums.

We consider the function $f(n)$ that enumerates partitions of weight $n$ wherein each part appears an odd number of times. Chern [‘Unlimited parity alternating partitions’, Quaest. Math. (to appear)] noted that such partitions can be placed in one-to-one correspondence with the partitions of $n$ which he calls unlimited parity alternating partitions with smallest part odd. Our goal is to study the parity of $f(n)$ in detail. In particular, we prove a characterisation of $f(2n)$ modulo 2 which implies that there are infinitely many Ramanujan-like congruences modulo 2 satisfied by the function $f.$ The proof techniques are elementary and involve classical generating function dissection tools.

Let $\mathbf{f}=(f_{1},\ldots ,f_{R})$ be a system of polynomials with integer coefficients in which the degrees need not all be the same. We provide sufficient conditions for which the system of equations $f_{j}(x_{1},\ldots ,x_{n})=0~(1\leqslant j\leqslant R)$ satisfies a general local to global type statement, and has a solution where each coordinate is prime. In fact we obtain the asymptotic formula for number of such solutions, counted with a logarithmic weight, under these conditions. We prove the statement via the Hardy–Littlewood circle method. This is a generalization of the work of Cook and Magyar [‘Diophantine equations in the primes’, Invent. Math.198 (2014), 701–737], where they obtained the result when the polynomials of $\mathbf{f}$ all have the same degree. Hitherto, results of this type for systems of polynomial equations involving different degrees have been restricted to the diagonal case.

In 2005, using a famous lemma of Atkin and Swinnerton-Dyer (Some properties of partitions, Proc. Lond. Math. Soc. (3) 4 (1954), 84–106), Yesilyurt (Four identities related to third order mock theta functions in Ramanujan’s lost notebook, Adv. Math. 190 (2005), 278–299) proved four identities for third order mock theta functions found on pages 2 and 17 in Ramanujan’s lost notebook. The primary purpose of this paper is to offer new proofs in the spirit of what Ramanujan might have given in the hope that a better understanding of the identities might be gained. Third order mock theta functions are intimately connected with ranks of partitions. We prove new dissections for two rank generating functions, which are keys to our proof of the fourth, and the most difficult, of Ramanujan’s identities. In the last section of this paper, we establish new relations for ranks arising from our dissections of rank generating functions.

We study almost prime solutions of systems of Diophantine equations in the Birch setting. Previous work shows that there exist integer solutions of size $B$ with each component having no prime divisors below $B^{1/u}$, where $u$ equals $c_{0}n^{3/2}$, $n$ is the number of variables and $c_{0}$ is a constant depending on the degree and the number of equations. We improve the polynomial growth $n^{3/2}$ to the logarithmic $(\log n)(\log \log n)^{-1}$. Our main new ingredients are the generalization of the Brüdern–Fouvry vector sieve in any dimension and the incorporation of smooth weights into the Davenport–Birch version of the circle method.

Assuming a conjecture on distinct zeros of Dirichlet $L$-functions we get asymptotic results on the average number of representations of an integer as the sum of two primes in arithmetic progression. On the other hand the existence of good error terms gives information on the location of zeros of $L$-functions. Similar results are obtained for an integer in a congruence class expressed as the sum of two primes.