Square of prime numbers

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This conjecture is inspired by the comment of @Eric Snyder: Prime numbers which end with 03, 23, 43, 63 or 83

$n$ is a natural number $>1$, $\varphi(n)$ denotes the Euler's totient function, $P_n$ is the $n^{th}$ prime number and $\sigma(n)$ is the sum of the divisors of n. Consider the expression:

$$F(n)=\varphi(|\sigma(n)-P_{n+2}|)+1$$

Conjecture: when $F(n) \equiv 3 \mod 20$ then this number is a prime or $P_{n+2}-\sigma(n)=p^2$ (p prime) when the number is not a prime.

Examples:

$n=10270001113$, we have:

$$F(10270001113)=\varphi(\sigma(10270001113)-P_{10270001115})+1=\varphi(10468624896-259189944599)+1=248721319703$$ which is prime because it ends by 03.

A counterexample is found with n=680:

$$F(680)=\varphi(\sigma(680)-P_{680})+1=\varphi(1620-5101)+1=3423$$ which is not prime but we have $P_{n+2}-\sigma(n)=p^2$, more precisely it is a square of 59.

Interestingly for $n \leq 30 000 000$ all counterexamples have $P_{n+2}-\sigma(n)=p^2$

  1. Prove that there are infinity $P_{n+2}-\sigma(n)=p^2$?
  2. Prove that there are only two possibilities: the result ends with 03, 23, 43, 63 or 83 and it is a prime or the result ends with 03, 23, 43, 63 or 83 and it is not a prime. In this case $P_{n+2}-\sigma(n)=p^2$
2

There are 2 best solutions below

12
On

Let $n$ be a natural number $\geq 1$, $\varphi(n)$ is the Euler's totient function, $\sigma(n)$ is the sum of divisors of $n$.

The important result is that if n is odd and $\varphi(n)=4k+2$ then $n$ has only one prime divisor. If we focus on numbers $a+b$ with $a$ even ($a=\sigma(k)$) and $b$ odd ($b=P_{k+2})$ the conjecture is true but we can generalize this result for all odd numbers (so this is the reason for which the formula is true with prime numbers).

Here I claim that only exceptions are $p^2$ but in reality the only exceptions are $p^k$.

10
On

According to my calculations with PARI/GP , the smallest counterexample is $$n=526388126$$ We have $$F(n)=10549870323$$ which is not prime and $P_{n+2}-\sigma(n)=47^6$ , which is a prime power and a perfect square , but not the square of a prime !