Digits of primes
We survey some different results on the digits of prime numbers, giving a simplified proof of weak forms of a result of Maynard and Mauduit-Rivat.
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arXiv subjects
James Maynard
Publications and source records attributed to James Maynard.
Gaps between primes
We discuss recent advances on weak forms of the Prime $k$-tuple Conjecture, and its role in proving new estimates for the existence of small gaps between primes and the existence of large gaps between primes.
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On the Twin Prime Conjecture
We discuss various recent advances on weak forms of the Twin Prime Conjecture.
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Small gaps between primes
We introduce a refinement of the GPY sieve method for studying prime $k$-tuples and small gaps between primes. This refinement avoids previous limitations of the method, and allows us to show that for each $k$, the prime $k$-tuples conjecture holds for a positive proportion of admissible $k$-tuples. In particular, $\liminf_{n}(p_{n+m}-p_n)<\infty$ for any integer $m$. We also show that $\liminf(p_{n+1}-p_n)\le 600$, and, if we assume the Elliott-Halberstam conjecture, that $\liminf_n(p_{n+1}-p_n)\le 12$ and $\liminf_n (p_{n+2}-p_n)\le 600$.
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Large gaps between primes
We show that there exists pairs of consecutive primes less than $x$ whose difference is larger than $t(1+o(1))(\log{x})(\log\log{x})(\log\log\log\log{x})(\log\log\log{x})^{-2}$ for any fixed $t$. Our proof works by incorporating recent progress in sieve methods related to small gaps between primes into the Erdos-Rankin construction. This answers a well-known question of Erdos.
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Primes represented by incomplete norm forms
Let $K=\mathbb{Q}(ω)$ with $ω$ the root of a degree $n$ monic irreducible polynomial $f\in\mathbb{Z}[X]$. We show the degree $n$ polynomial $N(\sum_{i=1}^{n-k}x_iω^{i-1})$ in $n-k$ variables formed by setting the final $k$ coefficients to 0 takes the expected asymptotic number of prime values if $n\ge 4k$. In the special case $K=\mathbb{Q}(\sqrt[n]θ)$, we show $N(\sum_{i=1}^{n-k}x_i\sqrt[n]{θ^{i-1}})$ takes infinitely many prime values provided $n\ge 22k/7$. Our proof relies on using suitable `Type I' and `Type II' estimates in Harman's sieve, which are established in a similar overall manner to the previous work of Friedlander and Iwaniec on prime values of $X^2+Y^4$ and of Heath-Brown on $X^3+2Y^3$. Our proof ultimately relies on employing explicit elementary estimates from the geometry of numbers and algebraic geometry to control the number of highly skewed lattices appearing in our final estimates.
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Primes with restricted digits
Let $a_0\in\{0,\dots,9\}$. We show there are infinitely many prime numbers which do not have the digit $a_0$ in their decimal expansion. The proof is an application of the Hardy-Littlewood circle method to a binary problem, and rests on obtaining suitable `Type I' and `Type II' arithmetic information for use in Harman's sieve to control the minor arcs. This is obtained by decorrelating Diophantine conditions which dictate when the Fourier transform of the primes is large from digital conditions which dictate when the Fourier transform of numbers with restricted digits is large. These estimates rely on a combination of the geometry of numbers, the large sieve and moment estimates obtained by comparison with a Markov process.
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Machine-Assisted Proofs (ICM 2018 Panel)
This submission to arXiv is the report of a panel session at the 2018 International Congress of Mathematicians (Rio de Janeiro, August). It is intended that, while v1 is that report, this stays a living document containing the panelists', and others', reflections on the topic.
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Sign changes of Kloosterman sums and exceptional characters
We prove that the existence of exceptional real zeroes of Dirichlet $L$-functions would lead to cancellations in the sum $\sum_{p\leq x} \Kl(1, p)$ of Kloosterman sums over primes, and also to sign changes of $\Kl(1, n)$, where $n$ runs over integers with exactly two prime factors. Our arguments involve a variant of Bombieri's sieve, bounds for twisted sums of Kloosterman sums, and work of Fouvry and Michel on sums of $\left| \Kl(1, n)\right|$.
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Vinogradov's theorem with almost equal summands
Let $θ> 11/20$. We prove that every sufficiently large odd integer $n$ can be written as a sum of three primes $n = p_1 + p_2 + p_3$ with $|p_i - n/3| \leq n^θ$ for $i\in\{1,2,3\}$.
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Long gaps between primes
Let $p_n$ denotes the $n$-th prime. We prove that $$\max_{p_{n+1} \leq X} (p_{n+1}-p_n) \gg \frac{\log X \log \log X\log\log\log\log X}{\log \log \log X}$$ for sufficiently large $X$, improving upon recent bounds of the first three and fifth authors and of the fourth author. Our main new ingredient is a generalization of a hypergraph covering theorem of Pippenger and Spencer, proven using the Rödl nibble method.
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Chains of large gaps between primes
Let $p_n$ denote the $n$-th prime, and for any $k \geq 1$ and sufficiently large $X$, define the quantity $$ G_k(X) := \max_{p_{n+k} \leq X} \min( p_{n+1}-p_n, \dots, p_{n+k}-p_{n+k-1} ),$$ which measures the occurrence of chains of $k$ consecutive large gaps of primes. Recently, with Green and Konyagin, the authors showed that \[ G_1(X) \gg \frac{\log X \log \log X\log\log\log\log X}{\log \log \log X}\] for sufficiently large $X$. In this note, we combine the arguments in that paper with the Maier matrix method to show that \[ G_k(X) \gg \frac{1}{k^2} \frac{\log X \log \log X\log\log\log\log X}{\log \log \log X}\] for any fixed $k$ and sufficiently large $X$. The implied constant is effective and independent of $k$.
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Primes and polynomials with restricted digits
Let $q$ be a sufficiently large integer, and $a_0\in\{0,\dots,q-1\}$. We show there are infinitely many prime numbers which do not have the digit $a_0$ in their base $q$ expansion. Similar results are obtained for values of a polynomial (satisfying the necessary local conditions) and if multiple digits are excluded. Our proof is based on the Hardy-Littlewood circle method and Fourier analysis of the set of integers with no digit equal to $a_0$ in base $q$.
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Dense clusters of primes in subsets
We prove a generalization of the author's work to show that any subset of the primes which is `well-distributed' in arithmetic progressions contains many primes which are close together. Moreover, our bounds hold with some uniformity in the parameters. As applications, we show there are infinitely many intervals of length $(\log{x})^ε$ containing $\gg_ε\log\log{x}$ primes, and show lower bounds of the correct order of magnitude for the number of strings of $m$ congruent primes with $p_{n+m}-p_n\le ε\log{x}$.
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On limit points of the sequence of normalized prime gaps
Let $p_n$ denote the $n$th smallest prime number, and let $\boldsymbol{L}$ denote the set of limit points of the sequence $\{(p_{n+1} - p_n)/\log p_n\}_{n = 1}^{\infty}$ of normalized differences between consecutive primes. We show that for $k = 9$ and for any sequence of $k$ nonnegative real numbers $β_1 \le β_2 \le ... \le β_k$, at least one of the numbers $β_j - β_i$ ($1 \le i < j \le k$) belongs to $\boldsymbol{L}$. It follows at least $12.5%$ of all nonnegative real numbers belong to $\boldsymbol{L}$.
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Bounded length intervals containing two primes and an almost-prime II
Zhang has shown there are infinitely many intervals of bounded length containing two primes. It appears that the current techniques cannot prove that there are infinitely many intervals of bounded length containing three primes, even if strong conjectures such as the Elliott-Halberstam conjecture are assumed. We show that there are infinitely many intervals of length at most $10^8$ which contain two primes and a number with at most 31 prime factors.
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3-tuples have at most 7 prime factors infinitely often
Let $L_1$, $L_2$ $L_3$ be integer linear functions with no fixed prime divisor. We show there are infinitely many $n$ for which the product $L_1(n)L_2(n)L_3(n)$ has at most 7 prime factors, improving a result of Porter. We do this by means of a weighted sieve based upon the Diamond-Halberstam-Richert multidimensional sieve.
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Bounded length intervals containing two primes and an almost-prime
Goldston, Pintz and Yıldırım have shown that if the primes have `level of distribution' $θ$ for some $θ>1/2$ then there exists a constant $C(θ)$, such that there are infinitely many integers $n$ for which the interval $[n,n+C(θ)]$ contains two primes. We show under the same assumption that for any integer $k\ge 1$ there exists constants $D(θ,k)$ and $r(θ,k)$, such that there are infinitely many integers $n$ for which the interval $[n,n+D(θ,k)]$ contains two primes and $k$ almost-primes, with all of the almost-primes having at most $r(θ,k)$ prime factors. If $θ$ can be taken as large as $1-ε$, and provided that numbers with 2, 3, or 4 prime factors also have level of distribution $1-ε$, we show that there are infinitely many integers $n$ such that the interval $[n,n+90]$ contains 2 primes and a number with at most 4 prime factors.
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