The totient function ,
also called Euler's totient function, is defined as the number of positive
integers
that are relatively prime to (i.e., do not contain
any factor in common with)
, where 1 is counted as being relatively
prime to all numbers. Since a number less than or equal to and relatively
prime to a given number is called a totative, the
totient function
can be simply defined as the number of totatives of
. For example, there are eight totatives
of 24 (1, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, and 23), so
.
The totient function is implemented in the Wolfram Language as EulerPhi[n].
The number
is called the cototient of
and gives the number of positive integers
that have at least one prime factor in common with
.
is always even
for
.
By convention,
,
although the Wolfram Language defines
EulerPhi[0]
equal to 0 for consistency with its FactorInteger[0]
command. The first few values of
for
, 2, ... are 1, 1, 2, 2, 4, 2, 6, 4, 6, 4, 10, ... (OEIS
A000010). The totient function is given by
the Möbius transform of 1, 2, 3, 4, ...
(Sloane and Plouffe 1995, p. 22).
is plotted above for small
.
For a prime ,
(1)
|
since all numbers less than are relatively prime to
. If
is a power of a prime,
then the numbers that have a common factor with
are the multiples of
:
,
, ...,
. There are
of these multiples, so the number of factors relatively prime to
is
(2)
| |||
(3)
| |||
(4)
|
Now take a general
divisible by
.
Let
be the number of positive integers
not divisible by
. As before,
,
, ...,
have common factors, so
(5)
| |||
(6)
|
Now let
be some other prime dividing
. The integers divisible by
are
,
, ...,
. But these duplicate
,
, ...,
. So the number of terms that must be subtracted from
to obtain
is
(7)
| |||
(8)
|
and
(9)
| |||
(10)
| |||
(11)
|
By induction, the general case is then
(12)
| |||
(13)
|
where the product runs over all primes dividing
. An interesting identity relating
to
is given by
(14)
|
(A. Olofsson, pers. comm., Dec. 30, 2004).
Another identity relates the divisors of
to
via
(15)
|
The totient function is connected to the Möbius function
through the sum
(16)
|
where the sum is over the divisors of , which can be proven by induction on
and the fact that
and
are multiplicative (Berlekamp 1968, pp. 91-93; van
Lint and Nienhuys 1991, p. 123).
The totient function has the Dirichlet generating function
(17)
|
for
(Hardy and Wright 1979, p. 250).
The totient function satisfies the inequality
(18)
|
for all
except
and
(Kendall and Osborn 1965; Mitrinović and Sándor 1995, p. 9). Therefore,
the only values of
for which
are
,
4, and 6. In addition, for composite
,
(19)
|
(Sierpiński and Schinzel 1988; Mitrinović and Sándor 1995, p. 9).
also satisfies
(20)
|
where
is the Euler-Mascheroni constant. The
values of
for which
are given by 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 14, 15, 16, 18, 20, 22, ... (OEIS A100966).
The divisor function satisfies the congruence
(21)
| |||
(22)
|
for all primes and no composite
with the exception of 4, 6, and 22, where
is the divisor function.
This fact was proved by Subbarao (1974), despite the implication to the contrary,
"is it true for infinitely many composite
?," stated in Guy (1994, p. 92), a query subsequently
removed from Guy (2004, p. 142). No composite
solution is currently known to
(23)
|
(Honsberger 1976, p. 35).
A corollary of the Zsigmondy theorem leads to the following congruence,
(24)
|
(Zsigmondy 1882, Moree 2004, Ruiz 2004ab).
The first few
for which
(25)
|
are given by 1, 3, 15, 104, 164, 194, 255, 495, 584, 975, ... (OEIS A001274), which have common values , 2, 8, 48, 80, 96, 128, 240, 288, 480, ... (OEIS A003275).
The only
for which
(26)
|
is ,
giving
(27)
|
(Guy 2004, p. 139).
Values of
shared among
that are close together include
(28)
| |||
(29)
| |||
(30)
| |||
(31)
|
(Guy 2004, p. 139). McCranie found an arithmetic progression of six numbers with equal totient functions,
(32)
|
as well as other progressions of six numbers starting at 1166400, 1749600, ... (OEIS A050518).
If the Goldbach conjecture is true, then for every positive integer , there are primes
and
such that
(33)
|
(Guy 2004, p. 160). Erdős asked if this holds for and
not necessarily prime, but this relaxed form remains unproven
(Guy 2004, p. 160).
Guy (2004, p. 150) discussed solutions to
(34)
|
where
is the divisor function. F. Helenius has
found 365 such solutions, the first of which are 2, 8, 12, 128, 240, 720, 6912, 32768,
142560, 712800, ... (OEIS A001229).