English

An improved upper bound for the distribution of iterated Euler totient functions

Number Theory 2025-07-03 v2

Abstract

Let ϕ(n)\phi(n) be the Euler totient function and ϕk(n)\phi_k(n) its kk-fold iterate. In this note, we improve the upper bound for the number of positive nxn\leqslant x such that ϕk+1(n)cn\phi_{k+1}(n)\geqslant cn. Comparing with the upper bound which was obtained from Pollack's asymptotic formula of the summation of ϕk+1(n)\phi_{k+1}(n) for nxn\leqslant x, we have successfully increased the denominator exponent of the main term of the upper bound from kk to k+1k+1.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2506.23882,
  title  = {An improved upper bound for the distribution of iterated Euler totient functions},
  author = {Pei Gao and Qiyu Yang},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2506.23882},
  year   = {2025}
}
R2 v1 2026-07-01T03:39:35.045Z