On the characterization of complex-valued multiplicative functions. I (Q2266735)

It is a well known result due to Erdős that if f is a real valued monotonic multiplicative function such that f(m)\(\neq 0\) for any m then \(f(n)=n^ k\). It is also known that this assertion remains true even if the monotonicity is assumed to hold only on a set A having upper density one. In this paper the author considers the analogous problem for a complex valued multiplicative function. It is shown that if at least two of the functions Re f, Im f and \(| f|\) are monotone on a set A as above then \(f(n)=n^ k\) except for the two counter examples: (i) \(f(a)=0\) \(\forall a\in A\), \(a\geq a_ 0\) and (ii) Im \(f\equiv 0\). As can be expected in such problems, proofs are elementary but clever.