Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 April 2009
Given an integer n≥2, let λ(n):=(log n)/(log γ(n)), where γ(n)=∏ p∣np, denote the index of composition of n, with λ(1)=1. Letting ϕ and σ stand for the Euler function and the sum of divisors function, we show that both λ(ϕ(n)) and λ(σ(n)) have normal order 1 and mean value 1. Given an arbitrary integer k≥2, we then study the size of min {λ(ϕ(n)),λ(ϕ(n+1)),…,λ(ϕ(n+k−1))} and of min {λ(σ(n)),λ(σ(n+1)),…,λ(σ(n+k−1))} as n becomes large.
The first author was supported in part by a grant from NSERC. The second author was supported in part by Grants SEP-CONACyT 46755, PAPIIT IN104505 and a Guggenheim Fellowship.