Prime gap explained

A prime gap is the difference between two successive prime numbers. The n-th prime gap, denoted gn or g(pn) is the difference between the (n + 1)-st and the n-th prime numbers, i.e.

gn=pn-pn.

We have g1 = 1, g2 = g3 = 2, and g4 = 4. The sequence (gn) of prime gaps has been extensively studied; however, many questions and conjectures remain unanswered.

The first 60 prime gaps are:

1, 2, 2, 4, 2, 4, 2, 4, 6, 2, 6, 4, 2, 4, 6, 6, 2, 6, 4, 2, 6, 4, 6, 8, 4, 2, 4, 2, 4, 14, 4, 6, 2, 10, 2, 6, 6, 4, 6, 6, 2, 10, 2, 4, 2, 12, 12, 4, 2, 4, 6, 2, 10, 6, 6, 6, 2, 6, 4, 2, ... .

By the definition of gn every prime can be written as

pn+1=2+

n
\sum
i=1

gi.

Simple observations

The first, smallest, and only odd prime gap is the gap of size 1 between 2, the only even prime number, and 3, the first odd prime. All other prime gaps are even. There is only one pair of consecutive gaps having length 2: the gaps g2 and g3 between the primes 3, 5, and 7.

For any integer n, the factorial n! is the product of all positive integers up to and including n. Then in the sequence

n!+2,n!+3,\ldots,n!+n

the first term is divisible by 2, the second term is divisible by 3, and so on. Thus, this is a sequence of consecutive composite integers, and it must belong to a gap between primes having length at least n. It follows that there are gaps between primes that are arbitrarily large, that is, for any integer N, there is an integer m with .

However, prime gaps of n numbers can occur at numbers much smaller than n!. For instance, the first prime gap of size larger than 14 occurs between the primes 523 and 541, while 15! is the vastly larger number 1307674368000.

The average gap between primes increases as the natural logarithm of these primes, and therefore the ratio of the prime gap to the primes involved decreases (and is asymptotically zero). This is a consequence of the prime number theorem. From a heuristic view, we expect the probability that the ratio of the length of the gap to the natural logarithm is greater than or equal to a fixed positive number k to be ; consequently the ratio can be arbitrarily large. Indeed, the ratio of the gap to the number of digits of the integers involved does increase without bound. This is a consequence of a result by Westzynthius.[1]

In the opposite direction, the twin prime conjecture posits that for infinitely many integers n.

Numerical results

Usually the ratio of \frac is called the merit of the gap gn. Informally, the merit of a gap gn can be thought of as the ratio of the size of the gap compared to the average prime gap sizes in the vicinity of pn.

The largest known prime gap with identified probable prime gap ends has length 16,045,848, with 385,713-digit probable primes and merit M = 18.067, found by Andreas Höglund in .[2] The largest known prime gap with identified proven primes as gap ends has length 1,113,106 and merit 25.90, with 18,662-digit primes found by P. Cami, M. Jansen and J. K. Andersen.[3] [4]

, the largest known merit value and first with merit over 40, as discovered by the Gapcoin network, is 41.93878373 with the 87-digit prime 293703234068022590158723766104419463425709075574811762098588798217895728858676728143227. The prime gap between it and the next prime is 8350.[5] [6]

Largest known merit values [7] [8] [9]
Merit gn digits pn Date Discoverer
41.938784 8350 87 see above 2017 Gapcoin
39.620154 15900 175 3483347771 × 409/30 − 7016 2017 Dana Jacobsen
38.066960 18306 209 650094367 × 491#/2310 − 8936 2017 Dana Jacobsen
38.047893 35308 404 100054841 × 953#/210 − 9670 2020 Seth Troisi
37.824126 8382 97 512950801 × 229#/5610 − 4138 2018 Dana Jacobsen

The Cramér–Shanks–Granville ratio is the ratio of gn / (ln(pn))2. If we discard anomalously high values of the ratio for the primes 2, 3, 7, then the greatest known value of this ratio is 0.9206386 for the prime 1693182318746371. Other record terms can be found at .

We say that gn is a maximal gap, if gm < gn for all m < n., the largest known maximal prime gap has length 1572, found by Craig Loizides. It is the 82nd maximal prime gap, and it occurs after the prime 18571673432051830099.[10] Other record (maximal) gap sizes can be found in, with the corresponding primes pn in, and the values of n in . The sequence of maximal gaps up to the nth prime is conjectured to have about

2lnn

terms[11] (see table below).
Number 1 to 27
gn pn n
11 2 1
22 3 2
34 7 4
46 23 9
58 89 24
614 113 30
718 523 99
820 887 154
922 1,129 189
1034 1,327 217
1136 9,551 1,183
1244 15,683 1,831
1352 19,609 2,225
1472 31,397 3,385
1586 155,921 14,357
1696 360,653 30,802
17112 370,261 31,545
18114 492,113 40,933
19118 1,349,533 103,520
20132 1,357,201 104,071
21148 2,010,733 149,689
22154 4,652,353 325,852
23180 17,051,707 1,094,421
24210 20,831,323 1,319,945
25220 47,326,693 2,850,174
26222 122,164,747 6,957,876
27234 189,695,659 10,539,432
Number 28 to 54
gn pn n
28248 191,912,783 10,655,462
29250 387,096,133 20,684,332
30282 436,273,009 23,163,298
31288 1,294,268,491 64,955,634
32292 1,453,168,141 72,507,380
33320 2,300,942,549 112,228,683
34336 3,842,610,773 182,837,804
35354 4,302,407,359 203,615,628
36382 10,726,904,659 486,570,087
37384 20,678,048,297 910,774,004
38394 22,367,084,959 981,765,347
39456 25,056,082,087 1,094,330,259
40464 42,652,618,343 1,820,471,368
41468 127,976,334,671 5,217,031,687
42474 182,226,896,239 7,322,882,472
43486 241,160,624,143 9,583,057,667
44490 297,501,075,799 11,723,859,927
45500 303,371,455,241 11,945,986,786
46514 304,599,508,537 11,992,433,550
47516 416,608,695,821 16,202,238,656
48532 461,690,510,011 17,883,926,781
49534 614,487,453,523 23,541,455,083
50540 738,832,927,927 28,106,444,830
51582 1,346,294,310,749 50,070,452,577
52588 1,408,695,493,609 52,302,956,123
53602 1,968,188,556,461 72,178,455,400
54652 2,614,941,710,599 94,906,079,600
Number 55 to 82
gn pn n
55674 7,177,162,611,713 251,265,078,335
56716 13,829,048,559,701 473,258,870,471
57766 19,581,334,192,423 662,221,289,043
58778 42,842,283,925,351 1,411,461,642,343
59804 90,874,329,411,493 2,921,439,731,020
60806 171,231,342,420,521 5,394,763,455,325
61906 218,209,405,436,543 6,822,667,965,940
62916 1,189,459,969,825,483 35,315,870,460,455
63924 1,686,994,940,955,803 49,573,167,413,483
641,132 1,693,182,318,746,371 49,749,629,143,526
651,184 43,841,547,845,541,059 1,175,661,926,421,598
661,198 55,350,776,431,903,243 1,475,067,052,906,945
671,220 80,873,624,627,234,849 2,133,658,100,875,638
681,224 203,986,478,517,455,989 5,253,374,014,230,870
691,248 218,034,721,194,214,273 5,605,544,222,945,291
701,272 305,405,826,521,087,869 7,784,313,111,002,702
711,328 352,521,223,451,364,323 8,952,449,214,971,382
721,356 401,429,925,999,153,707 10,160,960,128,667,332
731,370 418,032,645,936,712,127 10,570,355,884,548,334
741,442 804,212,830,686,677,669 20,004,097,201,301,079
751,476 1,425,172,824,437,699,411 34,952,141,021,660,495
761,488 5,733,241,593,241,196,731 135,962,332,505,694,894
771,510 6,787,988,999,657,777,797 160,332,893,561,542,066
781,526 15,570,628,755,536,096,243 360,701,908,268,316,580
791,530 17,678,654,157,568,189,057 408,333,670,434,942,092
801,550 18,361,375,334,787,046,697 423,731,791,997,205,041
811,552 18,470,057,946,260,698,231 426,181,820,436,140,029
821,572 18,571,673,432,051,830,099 428,472,240,920,394,477

Further results

Upper bounds

Bertrand's postulate, proven in 1852, states that there is always a prime number between k and 2k, so in particular pn&hairsp;+1 < 2pn, which means gn < pn&hairsp;.

The prime number theorem, proven in 1896, says that the average length of the gap between a prime p and the next prime will asymptotically approach ln(p), the natural logarithm of p, for sufficiently large primes. The actual length of the gap might be much more or less than this. However, one can deduce from the prime number theorem an upper bound on the length of prime gaps:

For every

\epsilon>0

, there is a number

N

such that for all

n>N

gn<pn\epsilon

.

One can also deduce that the gaps get arbitrarily smaller in proportion to the primes: the quotient

\limn\toinfty

gn
pn

=0.

Hoheisel (1930) was the first to show[12] that there exists a constant θ < 1 such that

\pi(x+x\theta)-\pi(x)\sim

x\theta
log(x)

asx\toinfty,

hence showing that

gn<

\theta,
p
n

for sufficiently large n.

Hoheisel obtained the possible value 32999/33000 for θ. This was improved to 249/250 by Heilbronn,[13] and to θ = 3/4 + ε, for any ε > 0, by Chudakov.[14]

A major improvement is due to Ingham,[15] who showed that for some positive constant c,

if

\zeta(1/2+it)=O(tc)

then

\pi(x+x\theta)-\pi(x)\sim

x\theta
log(x)
for any

\theta>(1+4c)/(2+4c).

Here, O refers to the big O notation, ζ denotes the Riemann zeta function and π the prime-counting function. Knowing that any c > 1/6 is admissible, one obtains that θ may be any number greater than 5/8.

An immediate consequence of Ingham's result is that there is always a prime number between n3 and (n +&thinsp;1)3, if n is sufficiently large.[16] The Lindelöf hypothesis would imply that Ingham's formula holds for c any positive number: but even this would not be enough to imply that there is a prime number between n2 and (n +&thinsp;1)2 for n sufficiently large (see Legendre's conjecture). To verify this, a stronger result such as Cramér's conjecture would be needed.

Huxley in 1972 showed that one may choose θ = 7/12 = 0.58(3).[17]

A result, due to Baker, Harman and Pintz in 2001, shows that θ may be taken to be 0.525.[18]

In 2005, Daniel Goldston, János Pintz and Cem Yıldırım proved that

\liminfn\toinfty

gn
logpn

=0

and 2 years later improved this[19] to

\liminfn\toinfty

gn
\sqrt{logpn

(loglog

2}<infty.
p
n)

In 2013, Yitang Zhang proved that

\liminfn\toinftygn<7 ⋅ 107,

meaning that there are infinitely many gaps that do not exceed 70 million.[20] A Polymath Project collaborative effort to optimize Zhang's bound managed to lower the bound to 4680 on July 20, 2013.[21] In November 2013, James Maynard introduced a new refinement of the GPY sieve, allowing him to reduce the bound to 600 and show that for any m there exists a bounded interval with an infinite number of translations each of which containing m prime numbers.[22] Using Maynard's ideas, the Polymath project improved the bound to 246;[21] [23] assuming the Elliott–Halberstam conjecture and its generalized form, the bound has been reduced to 12 and 6, respectively.[21]

Lower bounds

In 1931, Erik Westzynthius proved that maximal prime gaps grow more than logarithmically. That is,

\limsupn\toinfty

gn
logpn

=infty.

In 1938, Robert Rankin proved the existence of a constant c > 0 such that the inequality

gn>

c logn loglogn loglogloglogn
(logloglogn)2

holds for infinitely many values of n, improving the results of Westzynthius and Paul Erdős. He later showed that one can take any constant c < eγ, where γ is the Euler–Mascheroni constant. The value of the constant c was improved in 1997 to any value less than 2eγ.[24]

Paul Erdős offered a $10,000 prize for a proof or disproof that the constant c in the above inequality may be taken arbitrarily large.[25] This was proved to be correct in 2014 by Ford–Green–Konyagin–Tao and, independently, James Maynard.[26] [27]

The result was further improved to

gn>

c logn loglogn loglogloglogn
logloglogn

for infinitely many values of n by Ford–Green–Konyagin–Maynard–Tao.[28]

In the spirit of Erdős' original prize, Terence Tao offered US$10,000 for a proof that c may be taken arbitrarily large in this inequality.[29]

Lower bounds for chains of primes have also been determined.[30]

Conjectures about gaps between primes

Even better results are possible under the Riemann hypothesis. Harald Cramér proved[31] that the Riemann hypothesis implies the gap gn satisfies

gn=O(\sqrt{pn}logpn),

using the big O notation. (In fact this result needs only the weaker Lindelöf hypothesis, if one can tolerate an infinitesimally larger exponent.[32])Later, he conjectured that the gaps are even smaller. Roughly speaking, Cramér's conjecture states that

gn=O\left((log

2\right).
p
n)

Firoozbakht's conjecture states that

1/n
p
n

(where

pn

is the nth prime) is a strictly decreasing function of n, i.e.,
1/(n+1)
p
n+1

<

1/n
p
n

foralln\ge1.

If this conjecture is true, then the function

gn=pn+1-pn

satisfies

gn<(log

2
p
n)

-logpnforalln>4.

[33] It implies a strong form of Cramér's conjecture but is inconsistent with the heuristics of Granville and Pintz[34] [35] [36] which suggest that

gn>

2-\varepsilon
e\gamma

(log

2
p
n)
infinitely often for any

\varepsilon>0,

where

\gamma

denotes the Euler–Mascheroni constant.

Meanwhile, Oppermann's conjecture is weaker than Cramér's conjecture. The expected gap size with Oppermann's conjecture is on the order of

gn<\sqrt{pn}.

As a result, under Oppermann's conjecture there exists

m

(probably

m=30

) for which every natural number

n>m

satisfies

gn<\sqrt{pn}.

Andrica's conjecture, which is a weaker conjecture than Oppermann's, states that[37]

gn<2\sqrt{pn}+1.

This is a slight strengthening of Legendre's conjecture that between successive square numbers there is always a prime.

Polignac's conjecture states that every positive even number k occurs as a prime gap infinitely often. The case k = 2 is the twin prime conjecture. The conjecture has not yet been proven or disproven for any specific value of k, but the improvements on Zhang's result discussed above prove that it is true for at least one (currently unknown) value of k ≤ 246.

As an arithmetic function

The gap gn between the nth and (n +&thinsp;1)st prime numbers is an example of an arithmetic function. In this context it is usually denoted dn and called the prime difference function.[37] The function is neither multiplicative nor additive.

See also

References

Further reading

External links

Notes and References

  1. .
  2. Web site: ATH . 2024-03-11 . Announcement at Mersenneforum.org . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20240312154958/https://mersenneforum.org/showpost.php?p=652565&postcount=300 . 2024-03-12 . Mersenneforum.org.
  3. Web site: Andersen. Jens Kruse. The Top-20 Prime Gaps. 2014-06-13. December 27, 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20191227185818/http://primerecords.dk/primegaps/gaps20.htm. live.
  4. Web site: Andersen . Jens Kruse . 8 March 2013 . A megagap with merit 25.9 . 2022-09-29 . primerecords.dk . December 25, 2019 . https://web.archive.org/web/20191225142708/http://primerecords.dk/primegaps/gap1113106.htm . live .
  5. Web site: Nicely . Thomas R. . 2019 . NEW PRIME GAP OF MAXIMUM KNOWN MERIT . 2022-09-29 . faculty.lynchburg.edu . April 30, 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20210430231853/https://faculty.lynchburg.edu/~nicely/#MaxMerit . live .
  6. Web site: Prime Gap Records . . June 11, 2022 .
  7. Web site: Record prime gap info . 2022-09-29 . ntheory.org . October 13, 2016 . https://web.archive.org/web/20161013173035/http://ntheory.org/gaps/stats.pl . live .
  8. Web site: Nicely . Thomas R. . 2019 . TABLES OF PRIME GAPS . 2022-09-29 . faculty.lynchburg.edu . November 27, 2020 . https://web.archive.org/web/20201127200939/https://faculty.lynchburg.edu/~nicely/index.html#TPG . live .
  9. Web site: Top 20 overall merits . 2022-09-29 . Prime gap list . July 27, 2022 . https://web.archive.org/web/20220727185421/https://primegap-list-project.github.io/lists/top20-overall-merits/ . live .
  10. Web site: Andersen. Jens Kruse. Record prime gaps. May 9, 2024.
  11. Kourbatov . A. . Wolf . M. . On the first occurrences of gaps between primes in a residue class . . 23 . Article 20.9.3 . 2020 . 2002.02115 . 4167933 . 1444.11191 . 211043720 . December 3, 2020 . April 12, 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20210412194750/https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/journals/JIS/VOL23/Wolf/wolf2.html . live .
  12. G. . Hoheisel . Primzahlprobleme in der Analysis . Sitzunsberichte der Königlich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin . 33 . 3–11 . 1930 . 56.0172.02 .
  13. H. A. . Heilbronn . Über den Primzahlsatz von Herrn Hoheisel . Mathematische Zeitschrift . 36 . 1 . 394–423 . 1933 . 10.1007/BF01188631 . 59.0947.01 . 123216472 .
  14. N. G. . Tchudakoff . On the difference between two neighboring prime numbers . Mat. Sb. . 1 . 799–814 . 1936 . 0016.15502.
  15. Ingham . A. E. . On the difference between consecutive primes . Quarterly Journal of Mathematics . Oxford Series . 8 . 1 . 255–266 . 1937 . 10.1093/qmath/os-8.1.255 . 1937QJMat...8..255I .
  16. Cheng . Yuan-You Fu-Rui . Explicit estimate on primes between consecutive cubes . 1201.11111 . Rocky Mt. J. Math. . 40 . 117–153 . 2010 . 10.1216/rmj-2010-40-1-117. 0810.2113 . 15502941 .
  17. Huxley . M. N. . 1972 . On the Difference between Consecutive Primes . Inventiones Mathematicae . 15 . 2 . 164–170 . 10.1007/BF01418933 . 1971InMat..15..164H . 121217000 .
  18. Baker . R. C. . G. . Harman . J. . Pintz . 2001 . The difference between consecutive primes, II . Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society . 83 . 3 . 532–562 . 10.1112/plms/83.3.532 . 8964027 . 10.1.1.360.3671 .
  19. 0710.2728. Primes in Tuples II. Goldston. Daniel A.. Pintz. János. Yıldırım. Cem Yalçin. 10.1007/s11511-010-0044-9. Acta Mathematica. 204. 1. 1–47. 2010. 7993099.
  20. Bounded gaps between primes . Yitang . Zhang . Yitang Zhang . . 2014 . 179 . 3 . 1121–1174 . 10.4007/annals.2014.179.3.7 . 3171761. free .
  21. Web site: Bounded gaps between primes. Polymath. 2013-07-21. February 28, 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20200228120914/http://michaelnielsen.org/polymath1/index.php?title=Bounded_gaps_between_primes. live.
  22. Small gaps between primes . Maynard . James . James Maynard (mathematician) . 2015 . . 181 . 1 . 383–413 . 3272929 . 10.4007/annals.2015.181.1.7. 1311.4600 . 55175056 .
  23. D.H.J. Polymath . Variants of the Selberg sieve, and bounded intervals containing many primes . Research in the Mathematical Sciences . 1 . 12 . 10.1186/s40687-014-0012-7 . 1407.4897 . 2014 . 3373710. 119699189 . free .
  24. J. . Pintz . Very large gaps between consecutive primes . . 63 . 2 . 286–301 . 1997 . 10.1006/jnth.1997.2081 . free .
  25. Book: Erdős. Paul. Bollobás. Béla. Thomason. Andrew. 1997. Combinatorics, Geometry and Probability: A Tribute to Paul Erdős. 1. Cambridge University Press. 9780521584722. September 29, 2022. September 29, 2022. https://web.archive.org/web/20220929060157/https://books.google.com/books?id=1E6ZwSEtPAEC&pg=PA1. live.
  26. Kevin . Ford . Ben . Green . Sergei . Konyagin . Terence . Tao . 2016 . 1408.4505 . Large gaps between consecutive prime numbers . . 183 . 3 . 935–974 . 10.4007/annals.2016.183.3.4 . 3488740. 16336889 .
  27. James . Maynard . 2016 . 183 . 3 . 1408.5110 . Large gaps between primes . 915–933 . 10.4007/annals.2016.183.3.3 . 3488739 . Ann. of Math.. 119247836 .
  28. 1412.5029 . Long gaps between primes . Ford . Kevin . Green . Ben . Konyagin . Sergei . Maynard . James . Tao . Terence . 2018. 3718451 . . 31 . 1 . 65–105 . 10.1090/jams/876 . 14487001 .
  29. Web site: Tao . Terence . 16 December 2014 . Long gaps between primes / What's new . August 29, 2019 . June 9, 2019 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190609134631/https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2014/12/16/long-gaps-between-primes/ . live .
  30. Kevin . Ford . James . Maynard . Terence . Tao . Chains of large gaps between primes . 1511.04468 . 2015-10-13. math.NT .
  31. Cramér . Harald . On the order of magnitude of the difference between consecutive prime numbers . . 2 . 1936 . 23–46 . 10.4064/aa-2-1-23-46 . free .
  32. Albert E. . Ingham . Albert Ingham . On the difference between consecutive primes . Quart. J. Math. . Oxford . 8 . 1 . 255–266 . 1937 . 10.1093/qmath/os-8.1.255 . 1937QJMat...8..255I . https://web.archive.org/web/20221205135811/https://dustri.org/b/files/On_the_difference_between_consecutive_primes_-_A.E.Ingham.pdf . 2022-12-05 . live.
  33. Sinha . Nilotpal Kanti . On a new property of primes that leads to a generalization of Cramer's conjecture . 2010 . 1010.1399 . math.NT . .
  34. Granville . Andrew . Andrew Granville . Harald Cramér and the distribution of prime numbers . Scandinavian Actuarial Journal . 1 . 1995 . 12–28 . 10.1080/03461238.1995.10413946 . 10.1.1.129.6847 . March 2, 2016 . September 23, 2015 . https://web.archive.org/web/20150923212842/http://www.dartmouth.edu/~chance/chance_news/for_chance_news/Riemann/cramer.pdf . live . .
  35. Book: Granville, Andrew . Proceedings of the International Congress of Mathematicians . Unexpected Irregularities in the Distribution of Prime Numbers . Andrew Granville . 1 . 1995 . 388–399 . http://www.dms.umontreal.ca/~andrew/PDF/icm.pdf . 10.1007/978-3-0348-9078-6_32 . 978-3-0348-9897-3 . March 2, 2016 . May 7, 2016 . https://web.archive.org/web/20160507093313/http://www.dms.umontreal.ca/~andrew/PDF/icm.pdf . live . .
  36. Pintz. János. János Pintz. Cramér vs. Cramér: On Cramér's probabilistic model for primes. Functiones et Approximatio Commentarii Mathematici. 37. 2. September 2007. 232–471. 10.7169/facm/1229619660. free.
  37. Guy (2004) §A8