No label defined (Q4234464)

In 1947, P. Erdős conjectured that a real-valued additive arithmetical function \(f\) has a [limit] distribution, if there is a bounded interval \(J\) for which the set \(\{m; f(m)\in J\}\) has a positive asymptotic density. Partial results are due to \textit{E. M. Paul} [Sankhyā, Ser. A 29, 279-282 (1967; Zbl 0159.05803)] and the author [\textit{G. J. Babu}, Sankhyā, Ser. A 39, 1-10 (1977; Zbl 0407.10044)]. In the paper under review the author deals with this problem for functions of two integer variables. Define, for a set \(E\subset {\mathbb N}\times{\mathbb N}\), the densities \[ \delta(E)= \lim_{\substack{ x,y\to \infty\\ (\text{independent})}} {1\over xy}\cdot \#\{(m,n)\in E,\;1 \leq m \leq x,\;1 \leq n \leq y \} \] and \[ \delta_\lambda (E) = \lim_{\substack{ x, y \to \infty\\ {y \over x} \to \lambda}} {1 \over x y} \cdot \# \{(m, n) \in E,\;1 \leq m \leq x,\;1 \leq n \leq y \}. \] Let \( \mu \) denote a finite measure on the interval \( ]a, b] \), which is not ``uniform'', and let \( h \) be a real-valued additive function of two variables. The author proves 1) Assume that \( \delta (\{(m,n); c < h(m,n) \leq d \}) = \mu (]c,d]) \) exists for every interval \( ]c,d] \subset ]a, b]\). Then \(h\) has a distributive function \(F\) with respect to \(\delta\), i. e. \[ \delta (\{(m,n); h(m,n)\leq c\})= F(c) \] at all continuity points of \(F\). 2) Assume that \(\delta_\lambda(\{(m,n); c< h(m,n)\leq d\}) = \mu(]c,d]) \) exists for every interval \( ]c,d] \subset ]a, b]\). Then \[ h(m,n) = r (\log m - \log n) + g(m,n) \] for some real \( r \) and some additive function \( g \), for which the series (with \( g^* = 1, \) if \( | g| \leq 1 \), otherwise \( g^* = g \)) \[ \sum_p {1 \over p} (g^*(p,1) + g^*(1,p)) \quad \text{and}\quad \sum_p {1 \over p} ([g^*(p,1)]^2 + [g^*(1,p)]^2) \] converge. Both of \( g \) and \( h \) do have [limit] distributions with respect to \( \delta_\lambda \). For the entire collection see [Zbl 0896.00021].