On Quotients of Values of Euler's Function on Factorials

Abstract

Recently, there has been some interest in values of arithmetical functions on members of special sequences, such as Euler's totient function $\varphi$ on factorials, linear recurrences, etc. In this article, we investigate, for given positive integers $a$ and $b$, the least positive integer $c=c(a,b)$ such that the quotient $\varphi (c!)/\varphi (a!)\varphi (b!)$ is an integer. We derive results on the limit of the ratio $c(a,b)/(a+b)$ as $a$ and $b$ tend to infinity. Furthermore, we show that $c(a,b)>a+b$ for all pairs of positive integers $(a,b)$ with an exception of a set of density zero.

13 pages, 2 figures; to appear in Bulletin of Australian Mathematical Society