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On the largest singular vector of the Redheffer matrix

Number Theory 2025-02-14 v1

Abstract

The Redheffer matrix AnRn×nA_n \in \mathbb{R}^{n \times n} is defined by setting Aij=1A_{ij} = 1 if j=1j=1 or ii divides jj and 0 otherwise. One of its many interesting properties is that det(An)=O(n1/2+ε)\det(A_n) = O(n^{1/2 + \varepsilon}) is equivalent to the Riemann hypothesis. The singular vector vRnv \in \mathbb{R}^n corresponding to the largest singular value carries a lot of information: vkv_k is small if kk is prime and large if kk has many divisors. We prove that the vector ww whose kk-th entry is the sum of the inverse divisors of kk, wk=dk1/dw_k = \sum_{d|k} 1/d, is close to a singular vector in a precise quantitative sense.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2502.09489,
  title  = {On the largest singular vector of the Redheffer matrix},
  author = {François Clément and Stefan Steinerberger},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2502.09489},
  year   = {2025}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-28T21:43:24.389Z