Let $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70F}(\cdot )$ be the classical Ramanujan $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70F}$-function and let $k$ be a positive integer such that $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70F}(n)\neq 0$ for $1\leqslant n\leqslant k/2$. (This is known to be true for $k<10^{23}$, and, conjecturally, for all $k$.) Further, let $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}$ be a permutation of the set $\{1,\ldots ,k\}$. We show that there exist infinitely many positive integers $m$ such that $|\unicode[STIX]{x1D70F}(m+\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}(1))|<|\unicode[STIX]{x1D70F}(m+\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}(2))|<\cdots <|\unicode[STIX]{x1D70F}(m+\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}(k))|$. We also obtain a similar result for Hecke eigenvalues of primitive forms of square-free level.

Denote by $\mathbb{P}$ the set of all prime numbers and by $P(n)$ the largest prime factor of positive integer $n\geq 1$ with the convention $P(1)=1$. In this paper, we prove that, for each $\unicode[STIX]{x1D702}\in (\frac{32}{17},2.1426\cdots \,)$, there is a constant $c(\unicode[STIX]{x1D702})>1$ such that, for every fixed nonzero integer $a\in \mathbb{Z}^{\ast }$, the set

$$\begin{eqnarray}\{p\in \mathbb{P}:p=P(q-a)\text{ for some prime }q\text{ with }p^{\unicode[STIX]{x1D702}}<q\leq c(\unicode[STIX]{x1D702})p^{\unicode[STIX]{x1D702}}\}\end{eqnarray}$$

$\mathbb{P}$

$\unicode[STIX]{x1D702}\in (\frac{32}{17},2.0606\cdots \,)$

$\unicode[STIX]{x1D702}\in (\frac{32}{17},2.1426\cdots \,)$

We prove a general large-sieve statement in the context of random walks on subgraphs of a given graph. This can be seen as a generalization of previously known results where one performs a random walk on a group enjoying a strong spectral gap property. In such a context the point is to exhibit a strong uniform expansion property for a suitable family of Cayley graphs on quotients. In our combinatorial approach, this is replaced by a result of Alon–Roichman about expanding properties of random Cayley graphs. Applying the general setting we show, for instance, that with high probability (in a strong explicit sense) random coloured subsets of integers contain monochromatic (nonempty) subsets summing to  $0$ , and that a random colouring of the edges of a complete graph contains a monochromatic triangle.

A number is called upper (lower) flat if its shift by +1 ( −1) is a power of 2 times a squarefree number. If the squarefree number is 1 or a single odd prime then the original number is called upper (lower) thin. Upper flat numbers which are primes arise in the study of multi-perfect numbers. Here we show that the lower or upper flat primes have asymptotic density relative to that of the full set of primes given by twice Artin’s constant, that more than 53% of the primes are both lower and upper flat, and that the series of reciprocals of the lower or the upper thin primes converges.