Booth Id:
MATH033
Category:
Mathematics
Year:
2018
Finalist Names:
Madhukara, Rachana (School: Canyon Crest Academy)
Abstract:
In this project, we aim to prove certain properties about a particular function c(n) = b_nr(n). This
is where b_n is a Boolean function with b_n being 1 if n = x^2 + y^2 for some integers x and y or
0 otherwise and r_chi(n) is the sum of all of the Dirichlet characters which are divisible by n.
Since chi will be clear from context, we will suppress the subscript throughout this manuscript.
The function c(n) sums the all of the chi values of the divisors of a certain number n if and only if
n can be expressed as the sum of two squares. Therefore, the question we ask is the following:
What are the asymptotics of the character sums of the function c(n)? In order to investigate this
problem, we first represent the character sum of r(n) as an asymptotic and prove that the
asymptotic is roughly L(1, chi) with a small error term. Additionally, we compute a representation
for the character sum c(n) as an Euler product, and also find error bounds on the asymptotic for
the character sum.
Awards Won:
Fourth Award of $500
American Mathematical Society: Second Award of $1,000