Equation with Euler's Totient Function

Find the sum of all possible solutions to the equation ϕ ( x ) = 100. \large \phi(x)=100.

Notation: ϕ ( ) \phi(\cdot) denotes the Euler's totient function .


The answer is 678.

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1 solution

Jason Martin
Nov 13, 2017

We will prove this by cases

Case 1: n = a b n=ab for 1 < a < b < n 1 < a < b < n , g c d ( a , b ) = 1 gcd(a,b)=1 . Then ϕ ( n ) = ϕ ( a ) ϕ ( b ) = 100 \phi(n)=\phi(a)\phi(b)=100 , so in particular ϕ ( a ) 100 \phi(a) | 100 . Thus, we must have ϕ ( a ) = 1 , 2 , 4 , 5 , \phi(a)=1, 2, 4, 5, or 10 10 . Since 5 5 and 25 25 are odd and not 1 1 , we cannot have ϕ ( a ) = 4 , 5 \phi(a)=4, 5 . If ϕ ( a ) = 1 \phi(a)=1 , then we must have a = 2 a=2 , and b b must be odd (this will be significant later). If ϕ ( a ) = 2 \phi(a)=2 , then ϕ ( b ) = 50 \phi(b)=50 , for which there is no solution. Furthermore, ϕ ( a ) = 10 \phi(a)=10 implies a = 11 , 22 a=11, 22 , but then b b is not coprime to a a .

Case 2: Clearly since ϕ ( 2 k ) = 2 k 1 100 \phi(2^k)=2^{k-1} \ne 100 , our second case will be n = p k n=p^k for odd prime p p and k 1 k\geq 1 . If k = 1 k=1 , we have n = 101 n=101 . If k = 3 k=3 , then we have n = 125 n=125 . All other k k do not yield a solution.

Therefore, the values for n n are n = 101 , 125 , 202 , 250 n =101, 125, 202, 250

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