Weakly multiplicative arithmetic functions and the normal growth of groups

Abstract

We show that an arithmetic function which satisfies some weak multiplicativity properties and in addition has a non-decreasing or $\log$-uniformly continuous normal order is close to a function of the form $n\mapsto n^c$. As an application we show that a finitely generated, residually finite, infinite group, whose normal growth has a non-decreasing or a $\log$-uniformly continuous normal order is isomorphic to $(\mathbb{Z}, +)$.