Large gaps in the image of the Euler's function

Abstract

The aim of this note is to provide an upper bound of the number of positive integers $\le x$ which can be written as $\phi (n)$ for some positive integer $n$, where $\phi$ stands for the Euler's function. The order of magnitude of this estimate, which is roughly $x/\sqrt[4]{\ln x}$, implies that the set of Euler's values contains arbitrarily large gaps.

7 pages, no figures. This is an expository article, bibliography and introduction have been updated