OFFSET
0,1
COMMENTS
It's not obvious that a(n) exists for all n; I'd like to see a proof. - David Wasserman, Jun 07 2002
Note that k-1 is frequently prime. See A115374 for the least prime. For each n, it appears that there are an infinite number of k such that sigma(x)=k has exactly n solutions. - T. D. Noe, Jan 21 2006
According to Sierpiński, H. J. Kanold proved that there is a k such that sigma(x)=k has n or more solutions. Sierpiński states that Erdős proved that if, for some k, sigma(x)=k has exactly n solutions, then there are an infinite number of such k. - T. D. Noe, Oct 18 2006
Index of the first occurrence of n in A054973. - Jaroslav Krizek, Apr 25 2009
REFERENCES
M. Abramowitz and I. A. Stegun, eds., Handbook of Mathematical Functions, National Bureau of Standards Applied Math. Series 55, 1964 (and various reprintings), p. 840.
N. J. A. Sloane and Simon Plouffe, The Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, Academic Press, 1995 (includes this sequence).
LINKS
T. D. Noe and Donovan Johnson, Table of n, a(n) for n = 0..5000 (terms up to a(429) from T. D. Noe)
M. Abramowitz and I. A. Stegun, eds., Handbook of Mathematical Functions, National Bureau of Standards, Applied Math. Series 55, Tenth Printing, 1972 [alternative scanned copy].
Kevin Ford, Sergei Konyagin, On two conjectures of Sierpiński concerning the arithmetic functions σ and ϕ, arXiv:1910.08452 [math.NT], 2019.
W. Sierpiński, Elementary Theory of Numbers, Warszawa 1964, page 166.
R. G. Wilson, V, Letter to N. J. A. Sloane, Jul. 1992
EXAMPLE
a(10) = 504; {204, 220, 224, 246, 284, 286, 334, 415, 451, 503} is the set of x such that sigma(x) = 504.
MATHEMATICA
Needs["Statistics`DataManipulation`"]; s=DivisorSigma[1, Range[10^5]]; f=Frequencies[s]; fs=Sort[f]; tfs=Transpose[fs][[1]]; utfs=Union[tfs]; firstMissing=First[Complement[Range[Last[utfs]], utfs]]; pos=1; Table[While[tfs[[pos]]<n, pos++ ]; fs[[pos, 2]], {n, firstMissing-1}] (* T. D. Noe *)
terms = 100; cnt = DivisorSigma[1, Range[terms^3]] // Tally // Sort; a[0] = 2; a[n_] := SelectFirst[cnt, #[[2]] == n&][[1]]; Table[a[n], {n, 0, terms - 1}] (* Jean-François Alcover, Jul 18 2017 *)
CROSSREFS
KEYWORD
nonn
EXTENSIONS
More terms from David W. Wilson
STATUS
approved