English

Effective de la Valle Poussin style bounds on the first Chebyshev function

Number Theory 2025-04-15 v1

Abstract

In 1898 Charles Jean de la Valle Poussin, as part of his famed proof of the prime number theorem, developed an ineffective bound on the first Chebyshev function of the form: θ(x)x=O(xexp(Klnx)). |\theta(x)-x| = \mathcal{O}\left(x \exp(-K \sqrt{\ln x})\right). This bound holds for xx sufficiently large, xx0x\geq x_0, and KK some unspecified positive constant. To the best of my knowledge this bound has never been made effective -- I have never yet seen this bound made fully explicit, with precise values being given for x0x_0 and KK. Herein, using a number of effective results established over the past 50 years, I shall develop two very simple explicit fully effective bounds of this type: θ(x)x<  x  exp(14lnx);(x2). |\theta(x)-x| < \; {x} \;\exp\left( - {1\over4} \sqrt{\ln x}\right); \qquad (x\geq 2). θ(x)x<  x  exp(13lnx);(x3). |\theta(x)-x| < \; {x} \;\exp\left( - {1\over3} \sqrt{\ln x}\right); \qquad (x\geq 3). Many other fully explicit bounds along these lines can easily be developed. For instance one can trade off stringency against range of validity: θ(x)x<  12  x  exp(14lnx);(x29), |\theta(x)-x| < \; {1\over 2} \; {x} \;\exp\left( - {1\over4} \sqrt{\ln x}\right); \qquad (x\geq 29), θ(x)x<  12  x  exp(13lnx);(x41). |\theta(x)-x| < \; {1\over 2} \; {x} \;\exp\left( - {1\over3} \sqrt{\ln x}\right); \qquad (x\geq 41). With hindsight, some of these effective bounds could have been established almost 50 years ago.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2211.00840,
  title  = {Effective de la Valle Poussin style bounds on the first Chebyshev function},
  author = {Matt Visser},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2211.00840},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

7 pages, no figures

R2 v1 2026-06-28T04:58:45.481Z