English

Large gaps between consecutive prime numbers

Number Theory 2016-07-18 v2

Abstract

Let G(X)G(X) denote the size of the largest gap between consecutive primes below XX. Answering a question of Erdos, we show that G(X)f(X)logXloglogXloglogloglogX(logloglogX)2,G(X) \geq f(X) \frac{\log X \log \log X \log \log \log \log X}{(\log \log \log X)^2}, where f(X)f(X) is a function tending to infinity with XX. Our proof combines existing arguments with a random construction covering a set of primes by arithmetic progressions. As such, we rely on recent work on the existence and distribution of long arithmetic progressions consisting entirely of primes.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1408.4505,
  title  = {Large gaps between consecutive prime numbers},
  author = {Kevin Ford and Ben Green and Sergei Konyagin and Terence Tao},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1408.4505},
  year   = {2016}
}

Comments

v2. very minor corrections. To appear in Ann. Math

R2 v1 2026-06-22T05:34:08.401Z