On a conjecture of Mąkowski and Schinzel concerning the composition of the arithmetic functions σ and ϕ
For any positive integer n let ϕ(n) and σ(n) be the Euler function of n and the sum of divisors of n, respectively. In [5], Mąkowski and Schinzel conjectured that the inequality σ(ϕ(n)) ≥ n/2 holds for all positive integers n. We show that the lower density of the set of positive integers satisfying the above inequality is at least 0.74.