English

A Novel Generalization of the Liouville Function $\lambda(n)$ and a Convergence Result for the Associated Dirichlet Series

Number Theory 2025-04-04 v9

Abstract

We introduce a novel arithmetic function w(n)w(n), a generalization of the Liouville function λ(n)\lambda(n), as the coefficients of a Dirichlet series. By spatially encoding information in a natural way about the distribution of prime factors among natural numbers, w(n)w(n) allows results to be obtained which rely intrinsically on the distribution of primes without having direct knowledge of that distribution. We prove some properties of the distribution of w(n)w(n) and then provide a result on the convergence of its Dirichlet series. A parametrized family of functions wm(n)w_m(n) is defined of which w(n)w(n) is a special case. We show that each function wm(n)w_m(n) injectively maps N\mathbb{N} into a dense subset of the unit circle in C\mathbb{C} and that each Fm(s)=nwm(n)nsF_m(s) = \sum_n \frac{w_m(n)}{n^s} converges for all ss with (s)(12,1)\Re(s)\in\left(\frac{1}{2},1\right). Finally, we show that the family of functions wm(n)w_m(n) converges to λ(n)\lambda(n) and that Fm(s)F_m(s) converges uniformly in mm to nλ(n)ns\sum_n \frac{\lambda(n)}{n^s}, implying convergence of that series in the same region and thereby proving an interesting property about a closely related function.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2306.06867,
  title  = {A Novel Generalization of the Liouville Function $\lambda(n)$ and a Convergence Result for the Associated Dirichlet Series},
  author = {Sky Pelletier Waterpeace},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2306.06867},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

significant revision including substantial readability improvements. Addition of Hughes' Corollary