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Decay of Mean Values of Multiplicative Functions

Published:2003-12-01
Printed: Dec 2003
• Andrew Granville
• K. Soundararajan
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Abstract

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~$p$.
 MSC Classifications: 11N60 - Distribution functions associated with additive and positive multiplicative functions 11N56 - Rate of growth of arithmetic functions 10K20 - unknown classification 10K2011N37 - Asymptotic results on arithmetic functions

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