Explicit evaluation of triple convolution sums of the divisor functions

Abstract

In this paper, we use the theory of modular forms and give a general method to obtain the convolution sums [Formula: see text] for odd integers [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text], where [Formula: see text] is the sum of the [Formula: see text]th powers of the positive divisors of [Formula: see text]. We consider four cases, namely (i) [Formula: see text], (ii) [Formula: see text]; [Formula: see text] (iii) [Formula: see text]; [Formula: see text] and (iv) [Formula: see text], and give explicit expressions for the respective convolution sums. We provide several examples of these convolution sums in each case and further use these formulas to obtain explicit formulas for the number of representations of a positive integer [Formula: see text] by certain positive definite quadratic forms. The existing formulas for [Formula: see text] (in [20]), [Formula: see text] (in [7]), [Formula: see text] (in [35]), [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text] (in [30]) and [Formula: see text] (in [31]), which were all obtained by using the theory of quasimodular forms, follow from our method.