Euler's totient function
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In number theory, the totient of a positive integer n is defined to be the number of positive integers less than or equal to n that are coprime to n. For example, since the six numbers 1, 2, 4, 5, 7 and 8 are coprime to 9. The function so defined is the totient function. The totient is usually called the Euler totient or Euler's totient, after the Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler, who studied it. The totient function is also called Euler's phi function or simply the phi function, since it is commonly denoted by the Greek letter Phi (). The cototient of n is defined as ; the number of positive integers less than or equal to n that are not coprime to n.
The totient function is important mainly because it gives the size of the multiplicative group of integers modulo n. More precisely, is the order of the group of units of the ring . This fact, together with Lagrange's theorem, provides a proof for Euler's theorem.
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[edit] Computing Euler's function
It follows from the definition that , and . Moreover, is a multiplicative function; if m and n are coprime then . (Sketch of proof: let A, B, C be the sets of residue classes modulo-and-coprime-to m, n, mn respectively; then there is a bijection between A × B and C, via the Chinese remainder theorem.) The value of can thus be computed using the fundamental theorem of arithmetic: if
where the pj are distinct primes, then
This last formula is an Euler product and is often written as
with the product ranging only over the distinct primes p dividing n.
[edit] Computing example
In words, this says that the distinct prime factors of 36 are 2 and 3; half of the thirty-six integers from 1 to 36 are divisible by 2, leaving eighteen; a third of those are divisible by 3, leaving twelve coprime to 36. And indeed there are twelve: 1, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 25, 29, 31, and 35.
[edit] Some values of the function
+0 | +1 | +2 | +3 | +4 | +5 | +6 | +7 | +8 | +9 | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
0+ | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 6 | 4 | 6 | |
10+ | 4 | 10 | 4 | 12 | 6 | 8 | 8 | 16 | 6 | 18 |
20+ | 8 | 12 | 10 | 22 | 8 | 20 | 12 | 18 | 12 | 28 |
30+ | 8 | 30 | 16 | 20 | 16 | 24 | 12 | 36 | 18 | 24 |
40+ | 16 | 40 | 12 | 42 | 20 | 24 | 22 | 46 | 16 | 42 |
50+ | 20 | 32 | 24 | 52 | 18 | 40 | 24 | 36 | 28 | 58 |
60+ | 16 | 60 | 30 | 36 | 32 | 48 | 20 | 66 | 32 | 44 |
70+ | 24 | 70 | 24 | 72 | 36 | 40 | 36 | 60 | 24 | 78 |
80+ | 32 | 54 | 40 | 82 | 24 | 64 | 42 | 56 | 40 | 88 |
90+ | 24 | 72 | 44 | 60 | 46 | 72 | 32 | 96 | 42 | 60 |
[edit] Properties
The number is also equal to the number of possible generators of the cyclic group Cn (and therefore also to the degree of the cyclotomic polynomial ). Since every element of Cn generates a cyclic subgroup and the subgroups of Cn are of the form Cd where d divides n (written as d | n), we get
where the sum extends over all positive divisors d of n.
We can now use the Möbius inversion formula to "invert" this sum and get another formula for :
where μ is the usual Möbius function defined on the positive integers.
According to Euler's theorem, if a is coprime to n, that is, gcd(a,n) = 1, then
This follows from Lagrange's theorem and the fact that a belongs to the multiplicative group of iff a is coprime to n.
[edit] Generating functions
The two generating functions presented here are both consequences of the fact that
A Dirichlet series involving (n) is
where ζ(s) is the Riemann Zeta function. This is derived as follows:
A Lambert series generating function is
which converges for |q|<1.
This follows from
which is
[edit] Growth of the function
The growth of as a function of n is an interesting question, since the first impression from small n that might be noticeably smaller than n is somewhat misleading. Asymptotically we have
for any given ε > 0 and n > N(ε). In fact if we consider
we can write that, from the formula above, as the product of factors
taken over the prime numbers p dividing n. Therefore the values of n corresponding to particularly small values of the ratio are those n that are the product of an initial segment of the sequence of all primes. From the prime number theorem it can be shown that a constant ε in the formula above can therefore be replaced by
is also generally close to n in an average sense:
where the big O is the Landau symbol. This also says that the probability of two positive integers chosen at random from {1, 2, ..., n} being relatively prime approaches 6 / π2 when n tends to infinity. A related result is the average order of , which is described by
A proof of these two formulas may be found here.
[edit] Other formulas involving Euler's function
where m > 1 is a positive integer and ω(m) designates the number of distinct prime factors of m. (This formula counts the number of naturals less than or equal to n and relatively prime to m, additional material is listed among the external links.)
Proofs of some of these identities may be found here.
[edit] Inequalities
Some inequalities involving the function are:
- for n > 2, where γ is Euler's constant,
- for n > 0,
and
For prime n, clearly . For composite n we have
- (for composite n).
For all n > 1:
For randomly large n, these bounds still cannot be improved, or to be more precise:
A pair of inequalities combining the function and the σ divisor function are:
The last two are proved on the page on proofs of totient identities.
[edit] See also
- Nontotient
- Noncototient
- Highly totient number
- Sparsely totient number
- Highly cototient number
- Divisor function
- Carmichael function
- Proofs involving the totient function
[edit] References
- Milton Abramowitz and Irene A. Stegun, Handbook of Mathematical Functions, (1964) Dover Publications, New York. ISBN 0-486-61272-4. See paragraph 24.3.2.
- Eric Bach and Jeffrey Shallit, Algorithmic Number Theory, volume 1, 1996, MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-02405-5, see page 234 in section 8.8.
- Kirby Urner, Computing totient function in Python and scheme, (2003)
[edit] External links
- Miyata, Daisuke & Yamashita, Michinori, Derived logarithmic function of Euler's function
- Bordellès, Olivier, Numbers prime to q in [1,n]
- Calculate φ(n) for a number up to 231 [1]