arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Tim Trudgian.
We prove a conjecture of Glasby, Praeger, and Unger concerning the symmetric group $S_{n}$. Let $\pi_{n}$ denote the proportion of elements of $S_{n}$ that are pre-$p$-cycles for some prime $p\in[2, n-3]$. We prove that $\pi_{n} > 1/3$ for all $n\geq 8$.
We consider the Linnik--Goldbach problem of writing all large even integers as the sum of two primes and a fixed number of powers of 2. We show that, under the generalised Riemann hypothesis, one can use 6 powers of two. In addition, we discuss refinements to the unconditional case and to the related problem of Romanov in expressing a positive proportion of odd numbers as the sum of a prime and a power of 2.
We prove a new explicit zero-free region for the Riemann zeta-function, drawing substantially on Heath-Brown's seminal work on Linnik's constant. Using these ideas we are able to prove that $\zeta(\sigma + it)\ne 0$ whenever $t\geq 3$ and $\sigma \geq 1- 1/(4.896\log t)$.
A function from $\mathbb{F}_{2^n}$ to $\mathbb{F}_{2^n}$ is $k$th order sum-free if the sum of its values over each $k$-dimensional $\mathbb{F}_2$-affine subspace is nonzero. It is conjectured that for $n$ odd and prime, $f_\textrm{inv}=x^{-1}$ is not $k$th order sum-free for $3 \leq k \leq n-3$. This is the unresolved part of Carlet's conjecture, which gives exact values for which $f_\textrm{inv}$ is $k$th order sum-free. We give two results as improvements on an explicit estimate on the number of $q$-rational points of an $\mathbb{F}_q$-definable hypersurface previously proved by Cafure and Matera. We use these results to prove that $f_\textrm{inv}$ is not $k$th order sum-free for $3\leq k \leq \frac{3}{13}n+0.461$, improving on work previously done by Hou and Zhao.
We explore a method, going back to Landau and developed by Pintz, for connecting sums of arithmetic functions with zero-free regions for $L$-functions. In particular, we make explicit a general result of Pintz of this form; showing how one can use arithmetical information to deduce information about zeroes of $L$-functions, rather than the other way around. As a prototype, we work through an example with the Riemann zeta-function and sums of the M\"obius function, but we also outline the utility of this method in general.
It is known on the Generalised Riemann Hypothesis that there are precisely $13$ cyclic cubic fields that are norm-Euclidean. Unconditionally, there is a gap between analytic estimates which hold for all sufficiently large conductors and computational techniques. In this paper, we establish new results concerning explicit bounds for cubic non-residues and refine previous computational techniques, enabling us to completely characterise all norm-Euclidean cyclic cubic fields.
We examine the size of $E_{2}(T)$, the error term in the asymptotic formula for $\int_{0}^{T} |\zeta(1/2 + it)|^{4}\, dt$ where $\zeta(s)$ is the Riemann zeta-function. We make improvements in the powers of $\log T$ in the known bounds for $E_{2}(T)$ and $\int_{0}^{T} E_{2}(t)^{2}\, dt$. As a consequence, we obtain small logarithmic improvements for $k$th moments where $8\leq k\leq 12$. In particular, we make a modest improvement on the 12th power moment for $\zeta(s)$.
We obtain several new bounds on exponents of interest in analytic number theory, including four new exponent pairs, new zero density estimates for the Riemann zeta-function, and new estimates for the additive energy of zeroes of the Riemann zeta-function. These results were obtained by creating the Analytic Number Theory Exponent Database (ANTEDB) to collect results and relationships between these exponents, and then systematically optimising these relationships to obtain the new bounds. We welcome further contributions to the database, which aims to allow easy conversion of new bounds on these exponents into optimised bounds on other related exponents of interest.
We prove that for any prime power $q\notin\{3,4,5\}$, the cubic extension $\mathbb{F}_{q^3}$ of the finite field $\mathbb{F}_q$ contains a primitive element $\xi$ such that $\xi+\xi^{-1}$ is also primitive, and $\textrm{Tr}_{\mathbb{F}_{q^3}/\mathbb{F}_q}(\xi)=a$ for any prescribed $a\in\mathbb{F}_q$. This completes the proof of a conjecture of Gupta, Sharma, and Cohen concerning the analogous problem over an extension of arbitrary degree $n\ge3$.
Given a prime power $q$ and a positive integer $n$, let $\mathbb{F}_{q^{n}}$ denote the finite field with $q^n$ elements. Also let $a,b$ be arbitrary members of the ground field $\mathbb{F}_{q}$. We investigate the existence of a non-zero element $\xi \in \mathbb{F}_{q^{n}}$ such that $\xi+ \xi^{-1}$ is primitive and $T(\xi)=a, T(\xi^{-1})=b$, where $T(\xi)$ denotes the trace of $\xi$ in $\mathbb{F}_{q}$. This was a question intended to be addressed by Cao and Wang in 2014. Their work dealt instead with another problem already in the literature. Our solution deals with all values of $n \geq 5$. A related study involves the cubic extension $\mathbb{F}_{q^{3}}$ of $\mathbb{F}_{q}$. We show that if $q\geq 8\cdot 10^{12}$ then, for any $a\in \mathbb{F}_{q}$ we can find a primitive element $\xi \in \mathbb{F}_{q^{3}}$ such that $\xi + \xi^{-1}$ is also a primitive element of $\mathbb{F}_{q^{3}}$, and for which the trace of $\xi$ is equal to $a$. The improves a result of Cohen and Gupta. Along the way we prove a hybridised lower bound on prime divisors in various residue classes, which may be of interest to related existence questions.
For $q$ an odd prime power, we prove that there are always four consecutive primitive elements in the finite field $\mathbb{F}_{q}$ when $q> 2401$.
We verify numerically, in a rigorous way using interval arithmetic, that the Riemann hypothesis is true up to height $3\cdot10^{12}$. That is, all zeroes $\beta + i\gamma$ of the Riemann zeta-function with $0<\gamma\leq 3\cdot 10^{12}$ have $\beta = 1/2$.
Let $R_k(x)$ denote the error incurred by approximating the number of $k$-free integers less than $x$ by $x/\zeta(k)$. It is well known that $R_k(x)=\Omega(x^{\frac{1}{2k}})$, and widely conjectured that $R_k(x)=O(x^{\frac{1}{2k}+\epsilon})$. By establishing weak linear independence of some subsets of zeros of the Riemann zeta function, we establish an effective proof of the lower bound, with significantly larger bounds on the constant compared to those obtained in prior work. For example, we show that $R_k(x)/x^{1/2k} > 3$ infinitely often and that $R_k(x)/x^{1/2k} < -3$ infinitely often, for $k=2$, $3$, $4$, and $5$. We also investigate $R_2(x)$ and $R_3(x)$ in detail and establish that our bounds far exceed the oscillations exhibited by these functions over a long range: for $0<x\leq10^{18}$ we show that $|R_2(x)| < 1.12543x^{1/4}$ and $|R_3(x)| < 1.27417x^{1/6}$. We also present some empirical results regarding gaps between square-free numbers and between cube-free numbers.
Let $V(T)$ denote the number of sign changes in $\psi(x) - x$ for $x\in[1, T]$. We show that $\liminf_{\;T\rightarrow\infty} V(T)/\log T \geq \gamma_{1}/\pi + 1.867\cdot 10^{-30}$, where $\gamma_{1} = 14.13\ldots$ denotes the ordinate of the lowest-lying non-trivial zero of the Riemann zeta-function. This improves on a long-standing result by Kaczorowski.
We provide an explicit estimate on the least primitive root mod $p^{2}$. We show, in particular, that every prime $p$ has a primitive root mod $p^{2}$ that is less than $p^{0.99}$.
We give a method for producing explicit bounds on $g(p)$, the least primitive root modulo $p$. Using our method we show that $g(p)<2r\,2^{r\omega(p-1)}\,p^{\frac{1}{4}+\frac{1}{4r}}$ for $p>10^{56}$ where $r\geq 2$ is an integer parameter. This result beats existing bounds that rely on explicit versions of the Burgess inequality. Our main result allows one to derive bounds of differing shapes for various ranges of $p$. For example, our method also allows us to show that $g(p)<p^{5/8}$ for all $p\geq 10^{22}$ and $g(p)<p^{1/2}$ for $p\geq 10^{56}$.
We show that the natural density of positive integers $n$ for which $\sigma(2n+1)\geq \sigma(2n)$ is between $0.053$ and $0.055$.
We consider Dirichlet $L$-functions $L(s, \chi)$ where $\chi$ is a real, non-principal character modulo $q$. Using Pintz's refinement of Page's theorem, we prove that for $q\geq 3$ the function $L(s, \chi)$ has at most one real zero $\beta$ with $1- 1.011/\log q < \beta < 1$.