Research notes on every problem, and a library of the papers behind them. Built from the open erdos repository.
Updated
Source. Definition 5.2 and Theorem 5, printed p. 1747, physical PDF p. 9; the proof runs to printed p. 1748.
Convention
Definition 5.2, which the paper takes from Brunner, Caldwell, Krywaruczenko and Lownsdale: for a positive integer , an integer is a -Sierpiński number when , is not a power of , and is composite for every positive integer . The paper records that those authors show there are infinitely many -Sierpiński numbers for every base .
Statement
"Let be a positive integer such that is not a Mersenne number ( is not a power of 2). There exist infinitely many -Sierpiński numbers such that has at least three distinct prime divisors for all positive integers ." (p. 1747)
The hypothesis excludes and every of the form ; the paper describes the result as known for and proves the case .
Proof pointer. For the proof of Theorem 2 makes the Section 4 covering a -primitive -covering. Each modulus receives a primitive prime divisor of , and the Chinese Remainder Theorem gives infinitely many with $k\cdot b^{r_i}+1\equiv0 \pmod{p_i}$ for every , and ; the last two conditions give the coprimality and non-power clauses (pp. 1747--1748). The argument was followed but not independently checked here.