Divisor function
The divisor function is denoted and is defined as the sum of the
th powers of the divisors of
. Thus
where the
are the positive divisors of
.
Contents
[hide]Counting divisors
Note that , the number of divisors of
. Thus
is simply the number of divisors of
.
Example Problems
Demonstration
Consider the task of counting the divisors of 72.
- First, we find the prime factorization of 72:
- Since each divisor of 72 can have a power of 2, and since this power can be 0, 1, 2, or 3, we have 4 possibilities. Likewise, since each divisor can have a power of 3, and since this power can be 0, 1, or 2, we have 3 possibilities. By an elementary counting principle, we have
divisors.
We can now generalize. Let the prime factorization of be
. Any divisor of
must be of the form
where the
are integers such that
for
. Thus, the number of divisors of
is
.
Introductory Problems
Sum of divisors
The sum of the divisors, or , is given by

There will be products formed by taking one number from each sum, which is the number of divisors of
. Clearly all possible products are divisors of
. Furthermore, all of those products are unique since each positive integer has a unique prime factorization.
Since all of these products are added together, we can conclude this gives us the sum of the divisors.
Sum of kth Powers of Divisors
Inspired by the example of the sum of divisors, we can easily see that the sum of the powers of the divisors is given by
where
are the distinct prime divisors of
.
This is proven in a very similar way to the case.
See also
This article is a stub. Help us out by expanding it.