On the periodicity of a class of arithmetic functions associated with multiplicative functions (Q1946717)

For integers \(k\geq 1\), \(a\geq 1\), \(b\geq 0\), and \(c\geq 1\) and for a multiplicative function \(f\) with \(f(n) \not= 0\) for all positive integer \(n\) the authors defined the function \(g_{k,f}\) for any positive integer \(n\) as follows \[ g_{k,f}(n) := \frac{ \prod_{i=0}^{k} f(b+a(n+ic)) }{ f( \text{lcm}_{0\leq i\leq k} \{b+a(n+ic)\} ) }. \] In this paper the authors have two main results. In the first result they prove that \(g_{k,f}\) is periodic and that \(c\, \text{lcm}(1,2,\ldots,k)\) is a period and in the second one they give a formula for the smallest period for the special case \(g_{k,\varphi}\) where \(\varphi\) is the Euler phi function.