Number theoryDifficulty 8.4ShortlistFind the answer
For each positive integer k, let A(k) be the number of odd divisors of k in the interval [1,2k). Evaluate k=1∑∞(−1)k−1kA(k).
A number or a short expression. Fractions can be typed as 3/2, and spacing doesn't matter.
Solution
We will prove that the sum converges to π2/16. Note first that the sum does not converge absolutely, so we are not free to rearrange it arbitrarily. For that matter, the standard alternating sum test does not apply because the absolute values of the terms does not decrease to 0, so even the convergence of the sum must be established by hand.
Setting these issues aside momentarily, note that the elements of the set counted by A(k) are those odd positive integers d for which m=k/d is also an integer and d<2dm; if we write d = 2 -1, then the condition on m reduces to m. In other words, the original sum equals S 1 := k=1 1, m k = m(2 -1) (-1) m-1 m(2 -1) , and we would like to rearrange this to S 2 := =1 1 2 -1 m= (-1) m-1 m , in which both sums converge by the alternating sum test. In fact a bit more is true: we have | m= (-1) m-1 m | < 1 , so the outer sum converges absolutely. In particular, S2 is the limit of the truncated sums S 2,n = (2 -1) n 1 2 -1 m= (-1) m-1 m . To see that S1 converges to the same value as S2, write S 2,n - k=1 n (-1) k-1 A(k) k = (2 -1) n 1 2 -1 m= n 2 -1 +1 (-1) m-1 m . The expression on the right is bounded above in absolute value by the sum (2 -1) n 1 n, in which the number of summands is %at most n/2 and so the total is bounded by 1/2n. at most n (since n(2n−1)≥n), and so the total is bounded above by 1/n. Hence the difference converges to zero as n→∞; that is, S1 converges and equals S2.
We may thus focus hereafter on computing S2. We begin by writing S 2 = =1 1 2 -1 m= (-1) m-1 0 1 t m-1 ,dt. Our next step will be to interchange the inner sum and the integral, but again this requires some justification. Let f0,f1,… be a sequence of continuous functions on [0,1] such that for each x∈[0,1], we have f0(x)≥f1(x)≥⋯≥0. Then n=0∑∞(−1)n∫01fn(t)dt=∫01(n=0∑∞(−1)nfn(t))dt provided that both sums converge. Put gn(t)=f2n(t)−f2n+1(t)≥0; we may then rewrite the desired equality as n=0∑∞∫01gn(t)dt=∫01(n=0∑∞gn(t))dt, which is a case of the Lebesgue monotone convergence theorem. By Lemma~1, we have S 2 = =1 1 2 -1 0 1 ( m= (-1) m-1 t m-1 ) ,dt = =1 1 2 -1 0 1 (-t) -1 1+t ,dt. Since the outer sum is absolutely convergent, we may freely interchange it with the integral: S 2 = 0 1 ( =1 1 2 -1 (-t) -1 1+t ) ,dt = 0 1 1 t (1+t) ( =1 (-1) -1 t -1/2 2 -1 ) ,dt = 0 1 1 t (1+t) ( t ) ,dt = 0 1 2 1+u 2 (u) ,du (u = t ) = (1) 2 - (0) 2 = 2 16 .
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