Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
There is considerable literature concerning the century old result that for arbitrary positive integers a and m,
1.1
where μ(m) is the usual Mobius function. For earlier work on this we refer to L.E. Dickson [4, pp. 84–86] and L. Carlitz [1,2]. Another reference not noted by the above authors is R. Vaidyanathaswamy [6], who noted that the left member of (1.1) represents the number of special fixed points of the m th power of a rational transformation of the n th degree.