§27.4 Euler Products and Dirichlet Series
The fundamental theorem of arithmetic is linked to analysis through the concept
of the Euler product. Every multiplicative
satisfies the identity
if the series on the left is absolutely convergent. In this case the infinite
product on the right (extended over all primes
) is also absolutely
convergent and is called the Euler product of the series. If
is
completely multiplicative, then each factor in the product is a geometric
series and the Euler product becomes
Euler products are used to find series that generate many functions of
multiplicative number theory. The completely multiplicative function
gives the Euler product representation of the
Riemann zeta function
(§25.2(i)):

The Riemann zeta function is the prototype of series of the form
called Dirichlet series with coefficients
. The function
is
a generating function, or more precisely, a Dirichlet generating
function, for the coefficients. The following examples have generating
functions related to the zeta function:










