Möbius harmonic logarithmic moments 2026-10-06
Put . The elementary estimates areThe identities and give the first two bounds. Convolve the harmonic divisor sum with : because , its left side is . Thus . The summed error is .
This elementary smoothing argument is used in Selberg's original proof and Ramaré's sieve lectures, Lemma 4.2.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 iii Paper 27 5 b Solution 2026-10-06
Finite rearrangement and the Von Mangoldt divisor identity giveFor , integral comparison of the increasing logarithm gives . Moving to real changes the main term by . Thus the integrated Chebyshev sum hasFor , chooseThese are logarithmic Möbius function weights; they need not be upper-bound sieve weights. For , the Möbius inversion identities and giveHence the expression suggested in the question isWe will use the elementary Möbius harmonic logarithmic moments, , for whichHere is a proof of the needed estimates. From , replacing floors by gives . Also , because . Substituting the permitted harmonic number estimate gives , so .
For , the weighted Dirichlet hyperbola method gives the harmonic divisor sum expansionExplicitly, for , . Substitute the harmonic estimate and , obtained by unit-interval integral comparison. This proves the expansion without a prime-distribution theorem. Since , we have , and thereforeThe summed error is bounded by , by integral comparison. Thus .
Finally substitute the asymptotic for into . The main term isThe error sum is : partition the integers into ; each interval contributes , and the resulting series converges. Using the moment estimates proves the Selberg symmetry formula:In particular, the factor two comes from the quadratic logarithmic moment, rather than from an assumption of the Prime number theorem.