# A divergent series related to the number of divisors of of p-1

Let $d(n)$ denote the number of divisors of $n$. Is it known that the series $$\sum_{p \text{ prime}} \frac{1}{d(p-1)}$$ diverges?

This would follow immediately from the Sophie Germain Conjecture. Indeed, if there are infinitely many primes of the form $2p+1$ ($p$ a prime), then infinitely many terms of the series are equal to $1/4$, so the series doesn't even satisfy the most basic requirement for convergence! So, surely there must be a direct proof?

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See Igor's answer for an argument along the lines you want. mathoverflow.net/questions/27508/factors-of-p-1-when-p-is-prime –  Gjergji Zaimi Apr 25 '13 at 5:43
FYI: Since $1/d(n)$ is a multiplicative function that is $1/2$ on every prime, standard heuristics predict that the summatory function $\sum_{n\le x} 1/d(n)$ should have order of magnitude $x(\log x)^{1/2-1}$. (One could probably even write down the leading constant if careful.) On the further heuristic that random shifted primes $p-1$ aren't all that different from random $n$, one predicts that $\sum_{p\le x} 1/d(p-1)$ should have order of magnitude $x(\log x)^{-3/2}$. –  Greg Martin Apr 25 '13 at 7:52
Interesting, @Greg - thanks for sharing. –  Bruno Joyal Apr 27 '13 at 22:36

Since every divisor $k$ of $p-1$ either satisfies $k\le \sqrt{p-1}$ or $\frac{p-1}{k}\le \sqrt{p-1}$, we have $d(p-1) \le 2\sqrt{p-1}$. If we let $p_n$ denote the $n$th prime, then since $p_n-1 \le n^2$ for all $n$ (an easy consequence of the prime number theroem...), we have

$\sum_{n=1}^N \frac{1}{d(p_n-1)} \ge \sum_{n=1}^N\frac{1}{2n} \ge \frac{\ln N}{2}$,

so the partial sums diverge.

Obviously one can get much better bounds than these.

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Cool! Thanks zeb! –  Bruno Joyal Apr 25 '13 at 5:57
Nitpick: the prime number theorem has as an easy consequence the fact that $p_n-1\le n^2$ for all sufficiently large $n$. –  Greg Martin Apr 25 '13 at 7:41

Answering my own question, because I totally overlooked the following ridiculous idea:

Obviously $d(n)\leq n$ for every $n$. Thus $d(p-1)\leq p-1 < p$, so $1/d(p-1) > 1/p$ and the divergence follows from the divergence of $\sum 1/p$ (if one is willing to assume that).

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I did a heuristic analysis to study how this sum is growing. I calculated $d(p_n-1)$ and the sum and plotted the curve of the sum vs $n$. I obtained a very smooth curve which looked like a cumulative distribution curve. Next I did curve fitting to model this curve where the sum is the dependent variable and $n$ is the independent variable. The boundary condition I imposed was that the sum should be divergent. The following model was found to best fit the desired sum.

$$\sum_{n=1}^{x}\frac{1}{d(p_n - 1)} \sim e^{a + b/x + c\ln x}$$

where $a,b$ and $c$ are suitable constants.

The true asymptotic formula could be different from the above but I believe this can give some hints in the direction of the true asymptotics.

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Thank you, Nilotpal. –  Bruno Joyal Apr 27 '13 at 22:48
Presumably your $N$ and $x$ are the same. Note that $e^{a+b/x+c\ln x} = e^a x^c e^{b/x} \sim e^a x^c$. So your model is simply predicting that the sum is asymptotic to a constant times a power of $x$. This is almost surely false: the sum is bounded above by $cx/\log x$ by the prime number theorem, and bounded below by $cx/(\log x)^2$ if there are infinitely many Sophie Germaine primes. As I commented on the original post, the sum is probably asymptotic to a constant times $x(\log x)^{-3/2}$. –  Greg Martin Apr 28 '13 at 2:38