Some arithmetic functions of factorials in Lucas sequences

Abstract

We prove that if {un}n≥ 0 is a nondegenerate Lucas sequence, then there are only finitely many effectively computable positive integers n such that |un|=f(m!), where f is either the sum-of-divisors function, or the sum-of-proper-divisors function, or the Euler phi function. We also give a theorem that holds for a more general class of integer sequences and illustrate our results through a few specific examples. This paper is motivated by a previous work of Iannucci and Luca who addressed the above problem with Catalan numbers and the sum-of-proper-divisors function.