6
$\begingroup$

Note: By upper/lower density, we shall mean the upper/lower asymptotic density as given here.

Question:

For any subset $S \subset \mathbb N$ with positive upper density, does there exists a $\varepsilon > 0$ such that the set

$$A_{\varepsilon} := \{z \in \mathbb N \ | \ \text {The set } S_z=\{n~|~nz \in S\}\text { has upper density at least } \varepsilon\}$$

has nonzero lower density?

Remarks:

  1. This question arose when trying to prove a number theory result involving greatest common denominators of sets of naturals.

  2. The corresponding result, if one replaces the set $A_\varepsilon$ with the set $B := \{z \in \mathbb N \ | \ nz \in S \text { for infinitely many } n \in \mathbb N \}$ is true, and not overly difficult to prove. In fact we even have an explicit bound for the lower density of $B$ - it is at least the upper density of $S$.

$\endgroup$
2
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ I think this should be true. Davenport and Erdos have some papers on the density of the multiples of some set: users.renyi.hu/~p_erdos/1936-04.pdf and users.renyi.hu/~p_erdos/1951-07.pdf These seem quite related, tough I don't see a direct application. $\endgroup$
    – domotorp
    Commented Oct 1, 2021 at 18:58
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ Yeah, I believe I have a sketch that this is true - a slight extension of the proof of the rest in Remark 2 with quantitative bounds. $\endgroup$
    – Nate River
    Commented Oct 2, 2021 at 6:00

0

You must log in to answer this question.