While the twin prime conjecture is still famously open, it holds true in the setting of finite fields: There are infinitely many pairs of monic irreducible polynomials over $\mathbb{F}_q$ that differ by a fixed constant, for each $q \geq 3$. Elementary, constructive proofs were given for different cases by Hall and Pollack. In the same spirit, we discuss the construction of a further infinite family of twin prime tuples of odd degree, and its relations to the existence of certain Wieferich primes and to arithmetic properties of the combinatorial Bell numbers.
Jing Run Chen proved in 1966 that $p+2$ has at most two prime factors for infinitely many primes $p$. However, due to the parity problem we do not know whether $p+2$ has an odd (or even) number of prime factors infinitely often. In the present work it is proved that $p+d$ has an odd number of prime factors for at least one value of d=2,4,...16.
This paper is based on a talk given to motivated high school (and younger) students at a BAMA (Bay Area Math Adventure) event. Some of the methods used to study primes and twin primes are introduced.
In this small note, we provide an elementary proof of the fact that infinitely many odd zeta values are irrational. For the first time, this celebrated theorem been proven by Rivoal and Ball--Rivoal. The original proof uses highly non-elementary methods like the saddle-point method and Nesterenko's linear independence criterion. Recently, Zudilin has re-proven a slightly weaker form of his important result that at least one of the odd zeta values $ζ(5),ζ(7),ζ(9)$ and $ζ(11)$ is irrational, by elementary means. His new main ingredient are certain 'twists by half' of hypergeometric series. Gener…
Sieves are constructed for twin primes in class I, which are of the form 2m+/-D, D>=3 odd. They are characterized by their twin-D-I rank m. They have no parity problem. Non-rank numbers are identified and counted using odd primes p>=5. Twin-D-I ranks and non-ranks make up the set of positive integers. Regularities of non-ranks allow obtaining the number of twin-D-I ranks. It involves considerable cancellations so that the asymptotic form of its main term collapses to the expected form, but its coefficient depends on D.
We provide a way to modify and to extend a previously established inequality by P. Erdős, R. Graham and others and to answer a conjecture posed in the nineties by R. Graham, which bears on the lack of divisibility of the central binomial coefficient by three distinct, fixed odd primes. In fact the result will show by using an approach similar to their own which they proved for the case of two fixed odd primes, that the central binomial coefficient is not divisible infinitely often by three distinct and fixed odd primes. Therefore a generalization to more fixed odd primes than three but finite …
A sieve is constructed for twin primes at distance 4, which are of the form 3(2m+1)+/-2, and are characterized by their twin-4 rank 2m+1. It has no parity problem. Non-ranks are identified as all other odd numbers and counted using odd primes p>=5. Twin-4 ranks and non-ranks make up the set of odd numbers. Regularities of non-ranks allow gathering information on them to obtain a Legendre-type sum for the number of twin-4 ranks. Due to considerable cancellations in it, the asymptotic law of its main term has the expected form and magnitude of its coefficient.
Selberg identified the "parity" barrior, that sieves alone cannot distinguish between integers having an even or odd number of factors. We give here a short and self-contained demonstration of parity breaking using bilinear forms, modeled on the Twin Primes Conjecture.
In 1801, Gauss proved that there were infinitely many quadratic fields with odd class number. We generalise this result by showing that there are infinitely many $S_n$-fields of any given even degree and signature that have odd class number. Also, we prove that there are infinitely many fields of any even degree at least $4$ and with at least one real embedding that have units of every signature. To do so, we bound the average number of $2$-torsion elements in the class group, narrow class group, and oriented class group of monogenised fields of even degree (and compute these averages precisel…
In his Classical approximation to the Twin prime problem, Selberg proved that for $x$ sufficiently large, there is an $n \in (x,2x)$ such that $2^{Ω(n)}+2^{Ω(n+2)} \leq λ$ with $λ=14$, where $Ω(n)$ is the number of prime factors of $n$ counted with multiplicity. This enabled him to show that for infinitely many $n$, $n(n+2)$ has atmost $5$ prime factors, with one having atmost $2$ and the other having atmost $3$ prime factors. By adopting Selberg's approach and using a refinement suggested by Selberg, we improve this value of $λ$ to about $λ=12.59$.
We prove a necessary condition for some polynomials of degree 4e (e an odd number) to be APN over F q n for large n, and we investigate the polynomials f of degree 12.
We consider the representation of primes as a sum of a prime and twice a triangular number. We prove that a subset of the primes having density 1 is expressible in this form. We conjecture that every odd prime number is expressible as a sum of a twin prime and twice a triangular number. We show that this conjecture implies the existence of infinitely many twin primes.
In this paper we prove two results concerning Vinogradov's three primes theorem with primes that can be called almost twin primes. First, for any $m$, every sufficiently large odd integer $N$ can be written as a sum of three primes $p_1, p_2$ and $p_3$ such that, for each $i \in \{1,2,3\}$, the interval $[p_i, p_i + H]$ contains at least $m$ primes, for some $H = H(m)$. Second, every sufficiently large integer $N \equiv 3 \pmod{6}$ can be written as a sum of three primes $p_1, p_2$ and $p_3$ such that, for each $i \in \{1,2,3\}$, $p_i + 2$ has at most two prime factors.
Let $n$ be a squarefree positive odd integer. We will show that there exist infinitely many imaginary quadratic number fields with discriminant divisible by $n$ and-at the same time-having an element of order $n$ in the class group. We then apply our result to prove that for a given squarefree positive odd integer $n$ there exist infinitely many $N$ such that $n$ divides both $N$ and $r(N)$, where $r(N)$ is the representation number of $N$ as sums of three squares.
Let $E$ be an elliptic curve over $\Bbb{Q}$ with the given Weierstrass equation $ y^2=x^3+ax+b$. If $D$ is a squarefree integer, then let $E^{(D)}$ denote the $D$-quadratic twist of $E$ that is given by $E^{(D)}: y^2=x^3+aD^2x+bD^3$. Let $E^{(D)}(\Bbb{Q})$ be the group of $\Bbb{Q}$-rational points of $E^{(D)}$. It is conjectured by J. Silverman that there are infinitely many primes $p$ for which $E^{(p)}(\Bbb{Q})$ has positive rank, and there are infinitely many primes $q$ for which $E^{(q)}(\Bbb{Q})$ has rank $0$. In this paper, assuming the parity conjecture, we show that for infinitely many…
The Twin Prime conjecture states that there are infinitely many pairs of distinct primes which differ by $2$. Until recently this conjecture had seemed to be far out of reach with current techniques. However, in April 2013, Yitang Zhang proved the existence of a finite bound $B$ such that there are infinitely many pairs of distinct primes which differ by no more than $B$. This is a massive breakthrough, making the twin prime conjecture look highly plausible, and the techniques developed help us to better understand other delicate questions about prime numbers that had previously seemed intract…
For any natural number $n$, let $X'_n$ be the set of primitive Dirichlet characters modulo $n$. We show that if the Riemann hypothesis is true, then the inequality $|X'_{2n_k}|\le C_2 e^{-γ} ϕ(2n_k)/\log\log(2n_k)$ holds for all $k\ge 1$, where $n_k$ is the product of the first $k$ primes, $γ$ is the Euler-Mascheroni constant, $C_2$ is the twin prime constant, and $ϕ(n)$ is the Euler function. On the other hand, if the Riemann hypothesis is false, then there are infinitely many $k$ for which the same inequality holds and infinitely many $k$ for which it fails to hold.
In 1960, Sierpiński proved that there exist infinitely many odd positive integers $k$ such that $k\cdot 2^n+1$ is composite for all positive integers $n$. In this paper, we prove some generalizations of Sierpiński's theorem with $2^n$ replaced by expressions involving certain Lucas sequences $U_n(α,β)$. In particular, we show the existence of infinitely many Lucas pairs $(α,β)$, for which there exist infinitely many positive integers $k$, such that $k (U_n(α,β)+(α-β)^2)+1$ is composite for all integers $n\ge 1$. Sierpiński's theorem is the special case of $α=2$ and $β=1$. Finally, we establish…
Let $K$ be a number field, and $g \geq 2$ a positive integer. We define $c_K(g)$ as the smallest integer $n$ such that there exist infinitely many $\overline{K}$-isomorphism classes of genus $g$ hyperelliptic curves $C/K$ with all Weierstrass points in $K$ having potentially good reduction outside $n$ primes in $K$. We show that $c_K(g) > π_{K, \textrm{odd}}(2g) + 1$, where $π_{K, \textrm{odd}}(n)$ denotes the number of odd primes in $K$ with norm no greater than $n$, as well as present a summary of various conditional and unconditional results on upper bounds for $c_K(g)$.
We show that the equation phi(a)=σ(b) has infinitely many solutions, where phi is Euler's totient function and sigma is the sum-of-divisors function. This proves a 50-year old conjecture of Erdos. Moreover, we show that there are infinitely many integers n such that phi(a)=n and sigma(b)=n each have more than n^c solutions, for some c>0. The proofs rely on the recent work of the first two authors and Konyagin on the distribution of primes p for which a given prime divides some iterate of phi at p, and on a result of Heath-Brown connecting the possible existence of Siegel zeros with the distrib…
The present paper proves that if for a power sum $α$ over $\ZZ$ the length of the period of the continued fraction for $\sqrt{α(n)}$ is constant for infinitely many even (resp. odd) $n$, then $\sqrt{α(n)}$ admits a functional continued fraction expansion for all even (resp. odd) $n$, except finitely many; in particular, for such $n$, the partial quotients can be expressed by power sums of the same kind.
Let $\mathscr{G}_{\rm CM}(d)$ denote the collection of groups (up to isomorphism) that appear as the torsion subgroup of a CM elliptic curve over a degree $d$ number field. We completely determine $\mathscr{G}_{\rm CM}(d)$ for odd integers $d$ and deduce a number of statistical theorems about the behavior of torsion subgroups of CM elliptic curves. Here are three examples: (1) For each odd $d$, the set of natural numbers $d'$ with $\mathscr{G}_{\rm CM}(d') = \mathscr{G}_{\rm CM}(d)$ possesses a well-defined, positive asymptotic density. (2) Let $T_{\rm CM}(d) = \max_{G \in \mathscr{G}_{\rm CM}…
This paper is intended as a sequel to a paper arXiv:0803.2636 written by four of the coauthors here. In the paper, they proved a stronger form of the Erdős-Mirksy conjecture which states that there are infinitely many positive integers $x$ such that $d(x)=d(x+1)$ where $d(x)$ denotes the number of divisors of $x$. This conjecture was first proven by Heath-Brown in 1984, but the method did not reveal the nature of the set of values $d(x)$ for such $x$. In particular, one could not conclude that there was any particular value $A$ for which $d(x)=d(x+1)=A$ infinitely often. In the previous paper …
We prove the following function field analog of the Hardy-Littlewood conjecture (which generalizes the twin prime conjecture) over large finite fields. Let n,r be positive integers and q an odd prime power. For distinct polynomials a_1, ..., a_r over F_q of degree <n let π(q,n;a) be the number of monic polynomials f over F_q of degree n such that f+a_1, ..., f+a_r are simultaneously irreducible. We prove that π(q,n;a) asymptotically equals q^n/n^r as q tends to infinity on odd prime powers and n,r are fixed (the tuple a1,...,a_r need not be fixed).
In the previous paper, Hirakawa and the author determined the set of rational points of a certain infinite family of hyperelliptic curves $C^{(p;i,j)}$ parametrized by a prime number $p$ and integers $i$, $j$. In the proof, we used the standard $2$-descent argument and a Lutz-Nagell theorem that was proven by Grant. In this paper, we extend the above work. By using the descent theorem, the proof for $j=2$ is reduced to elliptic curves of rank $0$ that are independent of $p$. On the other hand, for odd $j$, we consider another hyperelliptic curve $C'^{(p;i,j)}$ whose Jacobian variety is isogeno…
In his work about Galois representations, Greenberg conjectured the existence, for any odd prime p and any positive integer t, of a multiquadratic p-rational number field of degree 2 t. In this article, we prove that there exists infinitely many primes p such that the triquadratic field Q(p(p + 2), p(p -- 2), i) is p-rational. To do this, we use an analytic result, proved apart in section \S4, providing us with infinitely many prime numbers p such that p + 2 et p -- 2 have ''big'' square factors. Therefore the related imaginary quadratic subfields Q(i $\sqrt$ p + 2), Q(i $\sqrt$ p -- 2) and Q(…
We study the prime-to-$p$ Hecke action on the projective limit of the sets of connected components of Shimura varieties with fixed parahoric or Bruhat--Tits level at $p$. In particular, we construct infinitely many Shimura varieties for CM unitary groups in odd variables for which the considering actions are not transitive. We prove this result by giving negative examples on the question of Bruhat--Colliot-Thélène--Sansuc--Tits or its variant, which is related to the weak approximation on tori over $\mathbb{Q}$.
We give an estimation of the existence density for the $2d$ different primes by using a new and simple algorithm for getting the $2d$ different primes. The algorithm is a kind of the sieve method, but the remainders are the central numbers between the $2d$ different primes. We may conclude that there exist infinitely many $2d$ different primes including the twin primes in case of $d=1$ because we can give the lower bounds of the existence density for the $2d$ different primes in this algorithm. We also discuss the Hardy-Littlewood conjecture and the Sophie Germain primes.
We prove there exist infinitely many odd integers $n$ for which there exists a pair of positive divisors $d_1, d_2>1$ of $(n^2+1)/2$ such that $$d_1+d_2=δn+(δ+2).$$ We prove the similar result for $\varepsilon=δ-2$ and $δ\equiv4, 6\pmod{8}$ using different approaches and methods.
In this paper, we study the diophantine equation ${{σ}_{2}}(n)-{{n}^{2}}=An+B$. We prove that except for finitely many computable solutions, all the solutions to this equation with $(A,B)=({{L}_{2m}},F_{2m}^{2}-1)$ are $n={{F}_{2k+1}}{{F}_{2k+2m+1}}$, where both ${{F}_{2k+1}}$ and ${{F}_{2k+2m+1}}$ are Fibonacci primes. Meanwhile, we show that the twin primes conjecture holds if and only if the equation ${{σ}_{2}}(n)-{{n}^{2}}=2n+5$ has infinitely many solutions.
Let $\ell \geq 5$ be prime. For the partition function $p(n)$ and $5 \leq \ell \leq 31$, Atkin found a number of examples of primes $Q \geq 5$ such that there exist congruences of the form $p(\ell Q^{3} n+β) \equiv 0 \pmod{\ell}.$ Recently, Ahlgren, Allen, and Tang proved that there are infinitely many such congruences for every $\ell$. In this paper, for a wide range of $c \in \mathbb{F}_{\ell}$, we prove congruences of the form $p(\ell Q^{3} n+β_{0}) \equiv c \cdot p(\ell Q n+β_{1}) \pmod{\ell}$ for infinitely many primes $Q$. For a positive integer $r$, let $p_{r}(n)$ be the $r$-colored par…
We characterize which residue classes contain infinitely many totients (values of Euler's function) and which do not. We show that the union of all residue classes that are totient-free has asymptotic density 3/4, that is, almost all numbers that are 2 mod 4 are in a residue class that is totient-free. In the other direction, we show the existence of a positive density of odd numbers m, such that for any $s\ge0$ and any even number $a$, the residue class $a\pmod{2^sm}$ contains infinitely many totients.
Let $m$ be any positive integer and let $δ_1,δ_2\in\{1,-1\}$. We show that for some constanst $C_m>0$ there are infinitely many integers $n>1$ with $p_{n+m}-p_n\le C_m$ such that $$\left(\frac{p_{n+i}}{p_{n+j}}\right)=δ_1\ \quad\text{and}\ \quad\left(\frac{p_{n+j}}{p_{n+i}}\right)=δ_2$$ for all $0\le i<j\le m$, where $p_k$ denotes the $k$-th prime, and $(\frac {\cdot}p)$ denotes the Legendre symbol for any odd prime $p$. We also prove that under the Generalized Riemann Hypothesis there are infinitely many positive integers $n$ such that $p_{n+i}$ is a primitive root modulo $p_{n+j}$ for any di…
Let $p$ be an odd prime number. We prove that for $m\equiv1\mod p$, $x^m$ is perfectly nonlinear over $\mathbb{F}_{p^n}$ for infinitely many $n$ if and only if $m$ is of the form $p^l+1$, $l\in\mathbb{N}$. First, we study singularities of $f(x,y)=\frac{(x+1)^m-x^m-(y+1)^m+y^m}{x-y}$ and we use Bezout theorem to show that for $m\neq 1+p^l$, $f(x,y)$ has an absolutely irreducible factor. Then by Weil theorem, f(x,y) has rationnal points such that $x\neq y$ which means that $x^m$ is not PN.
