Sums of divisors on arithmetic progressions (Q6571334)

Let \(\sigma_s(n)=\sum_{d\vert n}d^s\) for \(s\in \mathbb{R}, n\in\mathbb{N}\). Following several earlier results, the author studies the number of sign changes in the difference \(\sigma_s(an+b)-\sigma_s(cn+d)\), where \(a,b,c,d,s\) are fixed and the vectors \((a,b)\), \((c,d)\) are linearly independent over \(\mathbb{Q}\) and \(n\) runs through all positive integers.\par The rather complicated proofs depend on analytical inequalities. At the end of the paper open problems are formulated.