Tuesday, 28 August 2012

zeta functions - Fractional powers of Dirichlet series?

For your first question: let R be any commutative ring, and let D(R) be the ring of formal Dirichlet series over R, i.e., the set of all functions f:mathbbZ+rightarrowR under pointwise addition and convolution product.



Then the unit group of R is precisely the set of formal Dirichlet series f such that
f(1) is a unit in R.



As for your second question, it is indeed equivalent to asking whether U(D(R)) is n-divisible. Here, if we take R=mathbbZ as you asked, the answer is that for all ngeq2, U(D(mathbbZ)) is not n-divisible and that even the Dirichlet series zeta(s) is not an nth power in D(mathbbZ).



[Now, for some reason, I switch back to the classical notation, i.e., I replace the arithmetical function f by its "Dirichlet generating series" suminftyn=1fracf(n)ns. It would have been simpler not to do this, but too late.]



Let
f(s)=suminftyn=1fracanns be any formal Dirichlet series, and suppose
that g(s)=suminftyn=1fracbnns be a formal Dirichlet series such that
g2=f. Thus



a1+fraca22s+ldots=(b1+fracb22s+...)(b1+fracb22s+ldots)



=b21+frac2b1b22s+frac2b1b33s+frac2b1b4+b224s+ldots



(This multiplication is formal, i.e., it is true by definition.)



Thus b1=pmsqrta1. Suppose we take the plus sign, for simplicity. Then for all primes p,



ap=2b1bp, so



bp=fracap2sqrta1,



so we need 2sqrta1 to divide ap, so at least we need ap to be even for all primes p. Further conditions will come from the composite terms.



These same considerations show that if we replaced the coefficient ring mathbbZ by
mathbbQ (or any coefficient field of characteristic 0), then any formal Dirichlet series with a1=1 is n-divisible for all positive integers n. In particular, you can write zeta(s)frac1n as a Dirichlet series with mathbbQ-coefficients just by applying the above procedure and successively solving for the coefficients. Whether there is a nice formula for these coefficients is a question for a better combinatorialist than I to answer.



EDIT: Based on your comments below, I now understand that you are looking for a characterization of U(D(mathbbZ)) as an astract abelian group. I believe it is isomorphic to
pm1timesprodinftyi=1mathbbZ. (Or, more transparently, to
the product of pm1 with the product of infinitely many copies of prodinftyi=1mathbbZ, one for each prime number. But as abstract groups it amounts to the same thing.)

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