On divisor sums due to Erdős and Ramanujan

Abstract

Let $d(n)$ denote the number of divisors of a positive integer $n$. A classical problem in analytic number theory is given by the asymptotic behavior of the divisor sum $\sum_{n \leq x} \frac{1}{d(n)}$, with Ramanujan having introduced an asymptotic formula for this sum with an explicit evaluation for the constant $A_1$ for the leading term $A_1 \frac{x}{\sqrt{\log x}}$. Gabdullin et al. recently considered a hybrid of this problem and the Titchmarsh divisor problem concerning $\sum_{p\leq x} d(p-1)$, proving that $$\sum_{p\leq x} \frac{1}{d(p-1)} \asymp \frac{x}{(\log x)^{3/2}}.$$ This result, together with Erdős's asymptotic formula $\sum_{n \leq x} d(d(n)) \sim c \, x \log \log x $ for a constant $c \in (0, \infty)$, lead us to consider the hybrid $\sum_{n \leq x} \frac{1}{d(d(n))}$ of the Erdős and Ramanujan divisor sums. The presence of the reciprocal significantly complicates the analysis, as it amplifies the contribution of integers for which $d(d(n))$ is exceptionally small. In this paper, we prove that $$\sum_{n \leq x} \frac{1}{d(d(n))} \asymp \frac{x}{ \log \log x}, $$ through a combined application of Golomb's estimate for powerful numbers and Turán's quantitative form of the Hardy-Ramanujan theorem.