In this note, we prove a sharp lower bound for the log canonical threshold of a plurisubharmonic function $${\varphi}$$ with an isolated singularity at 0 in an open subset of $${\mathbb{C}^n}$$ . This threshold is defined as the supremum of constants$c$> 0 such that $${e^{-2c\varphi}}$$ is integrable on a neighborhood of 0. We relate $${c(\varphi)}$$ to the intermediate multiplicity numbers $${e_j(\varphi)}$$ , defined as the Lelong numbers of $${(dd^c\varphi)^j}$$ at 0 (so that in particular $${e_0(\varphi)=1}$$ ). Our main result is that $${c(\varphi)\geqslant\sum_{j=0}^{n-1} e_j(\varphi)/e_{j+1}(\varphi)}$$ . This inequality is shown to be sharp; it simultaneously improves the classical result $${c(\varphi)\geqslant 1/e_1(\varphi)}$$ due to Skoda, as well as the lower estimate $${c(\varphi)\geqslant n/e_n(\varphi)^{1/n}}$$ which has received crucial applications to birational geometry in recent years. The proof consists in a reduction to the toric case, i.e. singularities arising from monomial ideals.

For any natural number$m$(>1) let$P$($m$) denote the greatest prime divisor of$m$. By the problem of Erdős in the title of the present paper we mean the general version of his problem, that is, his conjecture from 1965 that $$\frac{P(2^n-1)}{n} \to \infty \quad {\rm as}\, n \to \infty$$ (see Erdős [10]) and its far-reaching generalization to Lucas and Lehmer numbers. In the present paper the author delivers three refinements upon Yu [40] required by C. L. Stewart for solving completely the problem of Erdős (see Stewart [25]). The author gives also some remarks on the solution of this problem, aiming to be more streamlined with respect to the$p$-adic theory of logarithmic forms.

Let$u$_{$n$}be the$n$th term of a Lucas sequence or a Lehmer sequence. In this article we shall establish an estimate from below for the greatest prime factor of$u$_{$n$}which is of the form$n$exp(log$n$/104 log log$n$). In doing so, we are able to resolve a question of Schinzel from 1962 and a conjecture of Erdős from 1965. In addition we are able to give the first general improvement on results of Bang from 1886 and Carmichael from 1912.

We prove the BMV (Bessis, Moussa, Villani, [1]) conjecture, which states that the function $${t \mapsto \mathop{\rm Tr}\exp(A-tB)}$$ , $${t \geqslant 0}$$ , is the Laplace transform of a positive measure on [0,∞) if$A$and$B$are $${n \times n}$$ Hermitian matrices and$B$is positive semidefinite. A semi-explicit representation for this measure is given.

We prove the so-called$unitary isotropy theorem$, a result on isotropy of a unitary involution. The analogous previously known results on isotropy of orthogonal and symplectic involutions as well as on hyperbolicity of orthogonal, symplectic, and unitary involutions are formal consequences of this theorem. A component of the proof is a detailed study of the quasi-split unitary grassmannians.