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Necessary conditions for existence of a friend of 38


RK Gachimu
CW Mwathi
IN Kamuti

Abstract

This paper sets out to, systematically, use properties of the abundancy index function to prove that a friend m of 38 must be an odd non-square multiple of 192 which is not divisible by 3, and that every prime factor q of m such that 4|(q + 1) has an even exponent in the prime factorization of m. In addition, if the power of 19 in m is 2, then 127|m in which case the power of 127 must be even, larger than 2 and not equal to 8, and if the power of 19 is 6, both 701 and 70841 would be compulsory prime factors of m, where the power of 701 cannot equal 1 or 3. The paper also establishes that it is not possible to have 8 as the power of 19 in the prime factorization of m.

Key words: Abundancy index, sum of divisors, friend, prime factor, power


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eISSN: 1561-7645