When a is an odd positive integer it is implicit in the work of Jacobi that the functions Y=∑∞1σa(n)Xn where σa(n)=∑d/nda (the sum of the ath powers of the divisors of n) satisfy an algebraic differential equation; i.e., there is a polynomial T not identically 0, such that T(X,Y,Y1,…,Ym)=0. When a=1 we give a new argument based on Ramanujan that we may take m=3 here.
In (I) we obtained the ``implicit'' algebraic differential equation for the function defined by Y=∑∞1naxn1−xn where a is an odd positive integer, and conjectured that there are no algebraic differential equations for the case when a is an even integer. In this note we obtain a simple proof that (this has been known for almost 200 years) Y=∞∑1xn2(|x|<1)
satisfies an algebraic differential equation, and conjecture that Y=∑∞1xnk (where k is a positive bigger than 2) does not satisfy an algebraic differential equation.
Let K(>1) and k(>1) be given integers. In this paper we prove that eK(q)≡0modk[m] for infinitely many primes q, where m=ckloglogq for a certain ck>0 and eK(q) denotes the exponent of K modulo q. In particular, q≡1modk for infinitely many primes q.