On the distribution of values of certain divisor functions (Q2264706)

Let \(\{\epsilon_d \}\) be a sequence of non-negative numbers and \(f(n)= \sum \{\epsilon_d: d \mid n \}\). The authors investigate under what circumstances there exists a continuous distribution function \(F(c)\) such that \(F(c) \to 0\) as \(c \to \infty\) and for each fixed \(c\), \(\text{card} \{n<x: f(n)>c \} \sim F(c)\). They show that it is sufficient that \(\sum \{1/p: \epsilon_p>0 \} = \infty\) and for some fixed \(\beta >0\), \[ 0 \leq \epsilon_d \leq 2^{- \log \log d-(1+ \beta)(2 \log \log d.\log \log \log \log d)^{1/2}}. \tag{1} \] The authors also obtain the result \(F(c- \delta)-F(c) \ll (\log 1/ \delta)^{-1/2}\) uniformly for all \(c\) and \(\delta <1/2\) in the special cases \(\epsilon_d=(\log d)^{- \alpha}\), \((\alpha > \log 2\), \(d \geq 2)\) or when (1) holds with equality on the right. The conditions \(\alpha > \log 2\), \(\beta >0\) are best possible in their contexts.