# Any correlation to Merten's function?

Here is a plot of partial sums of Liouville Lambda and Moebius Mu:

Notice the differences (in green) are tantalizingly close to $-n^{\frac{1}{2}}$.

Does this have any correlation to Merten's function?

Edit $$M(x)=O(x^{ \frac{1}{2}+\epsilon})$$ for some $\epsilon<\frac{1}{2}$

Edit tested to 50 million with $\epsilon=\frac{1}{32},$ no exceptions.

• Mertens' function has no limit. Could you clarify what your question exactly is? – Wojowu Aug 15 '15 at 22:11
• Did you plot any further? These functions are notoriously erratic, so this small sample may mean nothing at all... – Markus Shepherd Aug 16 '15 at 13:11
• @MarkusSchepke, retested to 3M, found exceptions. Retested using $\epsilon=\frac{1}{32}$, no exceptions. – Fred Kline Aug 16 '15 at 15:43
• @MarkusSchepke, It seems that the more $\lambda$ and $\mu$ become erratic, the less erratic are the differences. – Fred Kline Aug 16 '15 at 17:19

Let $\mu(n)$ denote the Mobius function, let $\lambda(n)$ denote the Liouville function, and let $M(x) = \sum_{n \leq x} \mu(n)$ and $L(x) = \sum_{n \leq x} \lambda(n)$ denote their summatory functions. The Riemann hypothesis implies $M(x) = O_{\varepsilon}(x^{1/2 + \varepsilon})$ and $L(x) = O_{\varepsilon}(x^{1/2 + \varepsilon})$.
In fact, if one assumes RH and the simplicity of the zeroes of $\zeta(s)$, then one can show that $\frac{M(x)}{\sqrt{x}} = \sum_{\rho} \frac{1}{\zeta'(\rho)} \frac{x^{i\gamma}}{\rho}$ for $x$ a positive real that is not an integer. Here the sum is over the nontrivial zeroes $\rho = 1/2 + i\gamma$ of $\zeta(s)$.
Similarly, one can show under the same hypotheses that $\frac{L(x)}{\sqrt{x}} = \frac{1}{\zeta(1/2)} + \sum_{\rho} \frac{\zeta(2\rho)}{\zeta'(\rho)} \frac{x^{i\gamma}}{\rho}$
This explains why the functions look similar: as $x^{i\gamma} = \cos(\gamma \log x) + i \sin(\gamma \log x)$, these functions basically look like sums of trigonometric waves of decreasing amplitude and frequency.
So if one plots the difference, one finds that $\frac{L(x) - M(x)}{\sqrt{x}} = \frac{1}{\zeta(1/2)} + \sum_{\rho} \frac{(\zeta(2\rho) - 1)}{\zeta'(\rho)} \frac{x^{i\gamma}}{\rho}.$ What you are seeing in your plots is the presence of the "main term" $1/\zeta(1/2)$. However, the contribution of the trigonometric waves cannot be ignored: although usually the "secondary terms" are not very large, very occasionally they can be big (and if one assumes a conjecture called the linear independence hypothesis, one can show that the secondary terms can get arbitrarily large).