Decay of Mean Values of Multiplicative Functions

http://dx.doi.org/10.4153/CJM-2003-047-0
Canad. J. Math. 55(2003), 1191-1230

  Published:2003-12-01
 Printed: Dec 2003

For given multiplicative function $f$, with $|f(n)| \leq 1$ for all $n$, we are interested in how fast its mean value $(1/x) \sum_{n\leq x} f(n)$ converges. Hal\'asz showed that this depends on the minimum $M$ (over $y\in \mathbb{R}$) of $\sum_{p\leq x} \bigl( 1 - \Re (f(p) p^{-iy}) \bigr) / p$, and subsequent authors gave the upper bound $\ll (1+M) e^{-M}$. For many applications it is necessary to have explicit constants in this and various related bounds, and we provide these via our own variant of the Hal\'asz-Montgomery lemma (in fact the constant we give is best possible up to a factor of 10). We also develop a new type of hybrid bound in terms of the location of the absolute value of $y$ that minimizes the sum above. As one application we give bounds for the least representatives of the cosets of the $k$-th powers mod~$p$.