On Benford's Law for multiplicative functions

Abstract

We provide a criterion to determine whether a real multiplicative function is a strong Benford sequence. The criterion implies that the $k$-divisor functions, where $k \neq 10^j$, and Hecke eigenvalues of newforms, such as Ramanujan tau function, are strong Benford. Moreover, we deduce from the criterion that the collection of multiplicative functions which are not strong Benford forms a group under pointwise multiplication. In contrast to earlier work, our approach is based on Hal\'{a}sz's Theorem.