Investigations in the theory of \(q\)-additive and \(q\)-multiplicative functions. I (Q5948313)

Let \(q\geq 2\) be a fixed integer, \({\mathbb A}=\{0,1,\hdots,q-1\}\), and denote by \({\mathbb N}_0\) the set of nonnegative integers. Each \(n\in {\mathbb N}_0\) has a unique \(q\)-ary expansion \[ n=\sum\limits_{j=0}^\infty \varepsilon_j(n)q^j,\;\;\;\varepsilon_j(n)\in{\mathbb A}. \] A function \(g:{\mathbb N}_0\to {\mathbb C}\) is called \(q\)-multiplicative if \(g(0)=1\) and for every \(n\in {\mathbb N}_0\) \[ g(n)=\prod\limits_{j=0}^\infty g(\varepsilon_j(n)q^j). \] Let \(a_1<\hdots<a_k<q\) be positive pairwise coprime integers each of which is coprime to \(q\). The authors investigate the mean values of \(g_1(a_1n),\dots,g_k(a_kn)\), where for every \(1\leq i\leq k\), \(g_i\) is a \(q\)-multiplicative function with \(|g_i(n)|=1\) \((n\in {\mathbb N}_0)\). Some applications are also given.