English

On divisor sums due to Erd\H{o}s and Ramanujan

Number Theory 2026-05-04 v1

Abstract

Let d(n)d(n) denote the number of divisors of a positive integer nn. A classical problem in analytic number theory is given by the asymptotic behavior of the divisor sum nx1d(n)\sum_{n \leq x} \frac{1}{d(n)}, with Ramanujan having introduced an asymptotic formula for this sum with an explicit evaluation for the constant A1A_1 for the leading term A1xlogxA_1 \frac{x}{\sqrt{\log x}}. Gabdullin et al. recently considered a hybrid of this problem and the Titchmarsh divisor problem concerning pxd(p1)\sum_{p\leq x} d(p-1), proving that px1d(p1)x(logx)3/2.\sum_{p\leq x} \frac{1}{d(p-1)} \asymp \frac{x}{(\log x)^{3/2}}. This result, together with Erd\H{o}s's asymptotic formula nxd(d(n))cxloglogx\sum_{n \leq x} d(d(n)) \sim c \, x \log \log x for a constant c(0,)c \in (0, \infty), lead us to consider the hybrid nx1d(d(n))\sum_{n \leq x} \frac{1}{d(d(n))} of the Erd\H{o}s and Ramanujan divisor sums. The presence of the reciprocal significantly complicates the analysis, as it amplifies the contribution of integers for which d(d(n))d(d(n)) is exceptionally small. In this paper, we prove that nx1d(d(n))xloglogx,\sum_{n \leq x} \frac{1}{d(d(n))} \asymp \frac{x}{ \log \log x}, through a combined application of Golomb's estimate for powerful numbers and Tur\'an's quantitative form of the Hardy-Ramanujan theorem.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2605.00695,
  title  = {On divisor sums due to Erd\H{o}s and Ramanujan},
  author = {John M. Campbell},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2605.00695},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

Submitted for publication