On a problem on a generalization of Euler's totient function

Abstract

Büyükaşik et al. [Publ. Math. Debrecen, 2024] introduced a family of generalizations of Euler's totient function $φ(n)$, by setting $φ_k(n) = \sum_{a} a^k$ for $a \in [1, n]$ such that $(a, n) = 1$, with $φ_0(n) = φ(n)$. Letting $\mathcal{D}_{s} = \{ k \geq s : \forall n \geq 1 \ φ_s(n) \mid φ_k(n) \}$, Büyükaşik et al. proved that $\mathcal{D}_{s}$ is finite for each $s \geq 0$, and conjectured that $\mathcal{D}_{1} = \{ 1, 3, 15 \}$ and provided computations to support this conjecture. We succeed in proving this conjecture, using an argument based on our extensive interactions with GPT-5.5 Pro.