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I'm reading Robin's paper, ''Grandes valeurs de la fonction somme des diviseurs et hypoth`ese de Riemann,'' J. Math. Pures Appl. (9) 63 (1984).

In particular, Lemma 5 states that

$\prod_{p\leq P} (1-p^{-1})^{-1} < e^{\gamma}\log \theta(P)\exp\Big(\frac{2+c}{\sqrt{P}\log P} + \frac{\alpha(P)}{\sqrt{P}\log^{2}P}\Big)$, where $\theta(x)=\sum_{p\leq x} \log p,$ $p$ denotes a prime and $\gamma$ is the Euler-Mascheroni constant. My understanding of French is not great, but it seems this result was proved unconditionally (more specifically without the RH). However, it seems to me that the RH would follow too easily from this.

I mean, from this result it can be shown that For every large enough colossally abundant (CA) number $N$, one has $\frac{\sigma(N)}{N}<e^{\gamma}\log \log N + \frac{5\log \log N}{\sqrt{\log N}\log \log N}$.

Indeed, let $N$ be an arbitrarily large CA number and let $p$ denote a prime. Define $P$ to be the largest prime factor of $N$. From the prime factorisation of $N$, it follows that \begin{equation} \theta(P):=\sum_{p \leq P} \log p \leq \log N \end{equation} The aforesaid Lemma 5 states that \begin{equation} \frac{\sigma(N)}{N}<\prod_{p\leq P} (1-p^{-1})^{-1} < e^{\gamma}\log \theta(P)\exp\Big(\frac{2+c}{\sqrt{P}\log P} + \frac{\alpha(P)}{\sqrt{P}\log^{2}P}\Big) \end{equation} where $c=0.04619$ and $\alpha(P)<3335$. It is well-known that $P \sim \log N$. Applying this together with the fact that $\theta(P)\leq \log N$ into the above yields \begin{equation} \frac{\sigma(N)}{N}<e^{\gamma}\log \log N + \frac{5\log \log N}{\sqrt{\log N}\log \log N}. \end{equation}

Now, suppose the RH is false. Then by Proposition 4 of the same paper of Robin , there should exist infinitely many CA numbers $n$ such that $\frac{\sigma(n)}{n\log \log n}=e^{\gamma} + \Omega_{\pm}((\log n)^{-C})$ for some constant $C \in (0, \frac{1}{2})$. But this would contradict the above inequality, thus we deduce that our supposition must be false thus the RH must be true ?

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    $\begingroup$ that lemma holds under RH true; the whole paragraph 3, so pages 192--204, are under RH true as the paper clearly states: in this paragraph, we assume RH is true; Lemma 5, in particular, uses the inequality (7) on page 194 - $\psi(x)-x \le C\sqrt x \log^2 x, x>74, 8\pi C=1$ which obviously needs RH to hold by general theory; I am fairly sure that Robin would have known if he had proved RH $\endgroup$
    – Conrad
    Commented Jan 1, 2021 at 1:28
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    $\begingroup$ also for an English exposition of Robin's paper, you can look in the first volume (arithmetic equivalents) of Broughan Equivalents of Riemann Hypothesis in which a lot of material is dedicated to Robin's work and in particular chapter 7.3 (page 174 - 180) goes through Robin's paragraph 3 above, lemma by lemma $\endgroup$
    – Conrad
    Commented Jan 1, 2021 at 2:01
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    $\begingroup$ The title should be "how didn't Robin prove the Riemann Hypothesis?". $\endgroup$ Commented Jan 1, 2021 at 3:45
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    $\begingroup$ recommend the simpler criterion of Nicolas; the proof proves something happens one case when RH holds, one case when it fails. zakuski.utsa.edu/~jagy/Nicolas_1983.pdf $\endgroup$
    – Will Jagy
    Commented Jan 2, 2021 at 1:16

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