On correlations of certain multiplicative functions (Q503710)

For \(\alpha>0\), define \(\mathcal{A}_\alpha\) to be the class of arithmetic functions \(g\) satisfying \(g(n)=O(n^{-\alpha})\) for each \(n\). Assume that \(f\in\mathcal{A}_\alpha\) and \(g\in\mathcal{A}_\beta\) for some \(\alpha>0\) and \(\beta>0\), and let \(F=f\ast 1\) and \(G=g\ast 1\). The authors prove that uniformly for all \(h\) with \(|h|\leq\frac{x}{2}\) one has \[ \sum_{H<n\leq x}F(n)G(n-h)=(x-H)C(h)+O(E(x;\alpha,\beta)), \] where the \(O\)-constant is absolute, \(H=h\) when \(h>0\) and \(H=0\) when \(h\leq 0\), the constant \(C(h)\) is defined by \[ \sum_{\substack{ a,b\geq 1\\ (a,b)|h}} \frac{f(a)g(b)}{[a,b]}, \] and the error term \(E(x;\alpha,\beta)\) equals to \(x^{1-\alpha}\) when \(\alpha<\beta\) and \(\alpha<1\), to \(x^{1-\alpha}\log x\) when \(\alpha=\beta<1\), to \(\log x\) when \(1=\alpha<\beta\), to \(\log^2 x\) when \(\alpha=\beta=1\), and to \(1\) when \(1<\alpha<\beta\). The authors use the method of proof of the above result to study sums \(\sum_{n\leq x}\mu^2(n)G(n-h)\). As a corollary, they consider the later sum with \(G(n)=\frac{\varphi(n)}{n}\), from which for the case \(h=0\) they obtain \[ \sum_{n\leq x}\mu^2(n)\frac{\varphi(n)}{n}=x\prod_{p}\left(1-\frac{2}{p^2}\right)\left(1+\frac{1}{p^3-2p}\right)+O(x^{\frac{1}{2}}), \] and guarantee that the exponent \(\frac{1}{2}\) in error term is the best possible. They also study the sums \(\sum_{p\leq x}F(p+h)G(p+k)\) running over primes, and end the paper with making comparison of their results with earlier similar results.