Generalizing Abundancy Index to Gaussian Integers

Abstract

Abundancy index refers to the ratio of the sum of the divisors of a number to the number itself. It is a concept of great importance in defining friendly and perfect numbers. Here, we describe a suitable generalization of abundancy index to the ring of Gaussian integers ($\mathbb{Z}[i]$). We first show that this generalization possesses many of the useful properties of the traditional abundancy index in $\mathbb{Z}$. We then investigate $k$-powerful $\tau$-perfect numbers and prove results regarding their existence in $\mathbb{Z}[i]$.