English

Complete Asymptotic Expansion of the Additive Mertens Sum $S_k(x)$

Number Theory 2026-07-05 v1

Abstract

Let p1,,pkp_1, \dotsc, p_k be primes not exceeding xx (k2k \geqslant 2), and define the additive Mertens sum Sk(x)=p1xpkx1p1++pk. S_k(x) = \sum_{p_1 \leqslant x} \cdots \sum_{p_k \leqslant x} \frac{1}{p_1 + \dotsm + p_k}. In contrast to Tenenbaum's generalized (multiplicative) Mertens sum, whose leading term has order (loglogx)k(\log \log x)^k, the sum Sk(x)S_k(x) has leading term of order xk1/logkxx^{k-1}/\log^k x. We establish the complete asymptotic expansion Sk(x)=xk1logkxn=0NEk,nlognx+O(xk1logk+N+1x)(N0), S_k(x) = \frac{x^{k-1}}{\log^k x} \sum_{n=0}^{N} \frac{E_{k,n}}{\log^n x} + O\left(\frac{x^{k-1}}{\log^{k+N+1} x}\right) \quad (\forall\, N \geqslant 0), where the coefficients are given by absolutely convergent multiple logarithmic integrals Ek,n=(1)n(0,1]khn(logt1,,logtk)t1++tkdt, E_{k,n} = (-1)^n \int_{(0,1]^k} \frac{h_n(\log t_1, \dotsc, \log t_k)}{t_1 + \dotsm + t_k}\, \mathrm{d}\mathbf{t}, with hnh_n the complete homogeneous symmetric polynomial of degree nn. We give closed-form expressions for the first two coefficients Ek,0E_{k,0} and Ek,1E_{k,1} for all kk, and obtain the closed form for the diagonal part of the third coefficient Ek,2E_{k,2} (with Ek,2E_{k,2} fully explicit for k4k \leqslant 4); consequently, the first three terms of the expansions of S2(x)S_2(x) and S3(x)S_3(x) are fully explicit. For k=2k = 2, we further obtain a closed-form expression for the entire sequence {E2,n}n0\{E_{2,n}\}_{n \geqslant 0}, whose values are explicit Q\mathbb{Q}-linear combinations of log2\log 2 and zeta values ζ(j)\zeta(j). The proofs rely on the real-variable form of the prime number theorem, variable rescaling, and multivariate Taylor remainder estimates.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2607.04366,
  title  = {Complete Asymptotic Expansion of the Additive Mertens Sum $S_k(x)$},
  author = {Daoyi Peng and Hao Liu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2607.04366},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

15 pages, 1 figures, 3 tables