A statistical investigation of a divisor-sum function
Number Theory
2026-04-08 v1
Abstract
The sum of proper divisors function has been studied for more than 2000 years. In this paper we study statistical properties of the related function . This function arises from a generalization of the practical numbers. We prove that has a continuous asymptotic distribution function, and that its values are dense in the interval . We also establish mean value computations for and , and provide uniform bounds for the higher order moments of . The main novelty in this paper is that we highlight a new method of Lebowitz-Lockard and Pollack that is useful for showing that certain functions have a continuous distribution function where classical methods sometimes fail.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2604.05284,
title = {A statistical investigation of a divisor-sum function},
author = {Ivan Aidun and Lola Thompson},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.05284},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
14 pages