On the densities of covering numbers and abundant numbers

Abstract

We investigate the densities of the sets of abundant numbers and of covering numbers, integers $n$ for which there exists a distinct covering system where every modulus divides $n$. We establish that the set $\mathcal{C}$ of covering numbers possesses a natural density $d(\mathcal{C})$ and prove that $0.103230 < d(\mathcal{C}) < 0.103398.$ Our approach adapts methods developed by Behrend and Del\'eglise for bounding the density of abundant numbers, by introducing a function $c(n)$ that measures how close an integer $n$ is to being a covering number with the property that $c(n) \leq h(n) = \sigma(n)/n$. However, computing $d(\mathcal{C})$ to three decimal digits requires some new ideas to simplify the computations. As a byproduct of our methods, we obtain significantly improved bounds for $d(\mathcal{A})$, the density of abundant numbers, namely $0.247619608 < d(\mathcal{A}) < 0.247619658$. We also show the count of primitive covering numbers up to $x$ is $O\left( x\exp\left(\left(-\tfrac{1}{2\sqrt{\log 2}} + \epsilon\right)\sqrt{\log x} \log \log x\right)\right)$, which is substantially smaller than the corresponding bound for primitive abundant numbers.