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Primes and Arithmetic Functions

Primes are important in number theory and there are many unsolved problems about primes. Some well-known conjectures include Goldbach's, the twin prime conjecture, and Legendre's conjecture. It has been proven that the sequence of primes contains arbitrarily long arithmetic progressions and that for any n>3, there is a prime between n and 2n-2. The document defines terms like prime factors, the totient function φ(n), the number of divisors τ(n), the sum of divisors σ(n), perfect numbers, and poses problems about proving properties of these arithmetic functions and the distribution of primes.

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47 views

Primes and Arithmetic Functions

Primes are important in number theory and there are many unsolved problems about primes. Some well-known conjectures include Goldbach's, the twin prime conjecture, and Legendre's conjecture. It has been proven that the sequence of primes contains arbitrarily long arithmetic progressions and that for any n>3, there is a prime between n and 2n-2. The document defines terms like prime factors, the totient function φ(n), the number of divisors τ(n), the sum of divisors σ(n), perfect numbers, and poses problems about proving properties of these arithmetic functions and the distribution of primes.

Uploaded by

Bob
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Primes and Arithmetic Functions (J)

Dana Ma
dana.ma537@gmail.com

March-April 2021

You will find that throughout your number theory adventures, primes are good friends! You can
solve many problems in number theory just by considering primes or prime factors.
There are a lot of open (i.e. unsolved) problems about prime numbers that are easy to state. Some
of the more well-known ones include:
• (Goldbach’s conjecture) Can every even integer greater than 2 be written as the sum of two
primes?
• (Twin prime conjecture) Are there infinitely many pairs of primes that differ by 2 (i.e. p
and p + 2 are both prime)?
• (Legendre’s conjecture) Is there always at least one prime between a pair of consecutive
squares?
• Are there infinitely many primes p that are one greater than a perfect square?
Some other interesting facts about primes that have been proven:
• (Green-Tao theorem) The sequence of prime numbers contains arbitrarily long arithmetic
progressions.
• (Bertrand’s postulate) For every integer n > 3, there exists at least one prime number p
such that
n < p < 2n − 2

Definitions
The fundamental theorem of arithmetic states that every integer n > 1 can be uniquely factored
into a product of prime powers. The existence and uniqueness of this factorisation is a powerful
property!
By convention we write this factorisation as

n = pα1 1 · ... · pαk k

We define τ (n) to be the number of positive divisors (factors) of n.


Exercise 1: Prove that τ (n) = (1 + α1 )(1 + α2 )...(1 + αk )
We define σ(n) to be the sum of the positive divisors of n.
Exercise 2: Prove that σ(n) = (1+p1 +p21 +...+pα1 1 )(1+p2 +p22 +...+pα2 2 )...(1+pk +p2k +...+pαk k )
The greatest common divisor of two numbers a and b, denoted gcd(a, b) or simply (a, b), is the
largest positive integer dividing both a and b.
Two integers are said to be coprime or relatively prime if their greatest common divisor is 1.
Given a positive integer n > 1, the Euler-phi (or totient) function φ(n) is the number of positive
integers less than n that are coprime to n.
Exercise 3: Compute φ(n) for 2 ≤ n ≤ 10.
It turns out that there is a closed form expression for φ(n) in terms of pi and αi (see Problem 7).
A positive integer n is a perfect number if it is equal to the sum of all its positive divisors less than
itself.
Exercise 4: Show that if n = 2k−1 (2k − 1) with 2k − 1 prime, then n is an even perfect number.

Problems
1. Prove that there are infinitely many primes.
2. By considering the product
    
1 1 1 1 1 1
1+ + + ... 1+ + + ... ... 1 + + + ...
p1 p21 p2 p22 pk p2k

prove that there are infinitely many primes.


n
3. The Fermat numbers are defined by Fn = 22 + 1.
• Prove that Fn = F0 F1 ...Fn−1 + 2.
• Deduce that there are infinitely many primes.
4. Prove that there are infinitely many primes of the form 4k + 3 (where k is a positive integer)
5. (Harder) By considering prime factors of (n!)2 + 1, prove that there are infinitely many primes
of the form 4k +1 (Hint: you may need a result from the Divisibility and Congruences lectures!)
6. Show that τ (n) is odd if and only if n is a perfect square.
7. Prove the following properties of φ:
• φ(pk ) = pk−1 (p − 1) for p prime and k a positive integer
• If p is prime and n is a positive integer, then
(
pφ(n) if p | n
φ(np) =
(p − 1)φ(n) otherwise

• φ(ab) = φ(a)φ(b) for a, b positive integers with (a, b) = 1


Hence, find an expression for φ(n) where n = pα1 1 · ... · pαk k .
8. Show that if φ(m) | m − 1 and m is not prime, then:
• m is square-free
• m has at least three distinct prime factors
(In fact, it’s not known if such an m exists!)
9. Show the converse of Exercise 4, i.e. that if n is an even perfect number, then n = 2k−1 (2k − 1)
with 2k − 1 prime.
10. Suppose n = 12k + 2 for some integer k such that 4k + 1 and 6k + 1 are both prime. Show that
τ (n) = τ (n + 1).
11. Find the number of zeroes at the end of 1000!.
12. Show that n! + 1 and (n + 1)! + 1 are always relatively prime.
13. Find all primes p such that 17p + 1 is a square.
14. Show that every even perfect number ends in a 6 or an 8.
15. Prove that if n > 1 and an − 1 is prime then a = 2 and n is prime.
Such primes are known as Mersenne primes. Can you find a number of the form 2p − 1 (p
prime) which is not a prime?
16. For any integer n ≥ 1, let f (n) = 11...144...4 where the digit 1 occurs n times and the digit 4
occurs 2n times.
Find all such n for which f (n) is a perfect square.
17. (2018 AIMO Q7) Two different positive integers a and b satisfy the equation a2 −b2 = 2018−2a.
What is the value of a + b?
18. (2016 AMO Q6) Let a, b and c be positive integers such that a3 + b3 = 2c .
Prove that a = b.

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