Applications of Class Numbers and Bernoulli Numbers To Harmonic Type Sums

Abstract

Divisibility properties of harmonic numbers by a prime number p have been a recurrent topic. However, finding the exact p-adic orders of them is not easy. Using class numbers of number fields and Bernoulli numbers, we compute the exact p-adic orders of harmonic type sums. Moreover, we obtain an asymptotic formula for generalized harmonic numbers whose p-adic orders are exactly one.