Speaker: Prof. Yangbo Ye (University of Iowa)

Title: Detecting factorization parity by random forests

Time: 10:00-11:00  May 28, 2026 (Thursday)

Place: MCM610

Abstract: The Liouville function λ(n)=(-1)^Ω(n), where Ω(n) is the number of prime factors of n counting multiplicities, encodes the parity of the factorization of n. Although λ(n) contains far less information than a full factorization, all known algorithms depend on factorization and therefore inherit subexponential time complexity. The existence of substantially faster methods for evaluating λ(n) would have significant implications for analytic number theory and for the presumed hardness of integer factorization. In this talk, Professor Yangbo Ye will present a solution using random forest models.