English

Distribution mod $p$ of Euler's totient and the sum of proper divisors

Number Theory 2021-05-28 v1

Abstract

We consider the distribution in residue classes modulo primes pp of Euler's totient function ϕ(n)\phi(n) and the sum-of-proper-divisors function s(n):=σ(n)ns(n):=\sigma(n)-n. We prove that the values ϕ(n)\phi(n), for nxn\le x, that are coprime to pp are asymptotically uniformly distributed among the p1p-1 coprime residue classes modulo pp, uniformly for 5p(logx)A5 \le p \le (\log{x})^A (with AA fixed but arbitrary). We also show that the values of s(n)s(n), for nn composite, are uniformly distributed among all pp residue classes modulo every p(logx)Ap\le (\log{x})^A. These appear to be the first results of their kind where the modulus is allowed to grow substantially with xx.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2105.12850,
  title  = {Distribution mod $p$ of Euler's totient and the sum of proper divisors},
  author = {Noah Lebowitz-Lockard and Paul Pollack and Akash Singha Roy},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2105.12850},
  year   = {2021}
}

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24 pages