Irrational Factor of Order k and ITS Connections With k-Free Integers

We introduce an irrational factor of order k defined by \({I_{k}(n) ={\prod_{i=1}^{l}} p_{i}^{\beta_{i}}}\) , where \({n = \prod_{i=1}^{l} p_{i}^{\alpha_{i}}}\) is the factorization of n and \({\beta_{i} = \left\{\begin{array}{ll}\alpha_i, \quad \quad {\rm if} \quad \alpha_i < k \\ \frac{1}{\alpha_i},\quad \quad {\rm if} \quad \alpha_i \geqq k \end{array}\right.}\) . It turns out that the function \({\frac{I_{k} (n)}{n}}\) well approximates the characteristic function of k-free integers. We also derive asymptotic formulas for \({\prod_{v=1}^{n} I_{k}(v)^{\frac{1}{n}}, \sum_{n \leqq x} I_{k}(n)}\) and \({\sum_{n \leqq x} (1 - \frac{n}{x}) I_{k}(n)}\) .