English

On twin prime distribution and associated biases

Number Theory 2023-07-21 v3

Abstract

A modified totient function (ϕ2\phi_2) is seen to play a significant role in the study of the twin prime distribution. The function is defined as \phi_2(n):=\#\{a\le n ~\vert ~\textrm{a(a+2)iscoprimeto is coprime to n}\} and is shown here to have following product form: ϕ2(n)=n(1θn2)p>2, pn(12p)\phi_2(n) = n (1-\frac{\theta_n}{2}) \prod_{p>2,~p\vert n}(1-\frac 2 p), where pp denotes a prime and θn=0\theta_n = 0 or 11 for odd or even nn respectively. Using this function it is proved for a given nn that there always exists a number m>nm > n so that (p,m(m+2))=1(p, m(m + 2)) = 1 for every prime pnp \le n. We also establish a Legendre-type formula for the twin prime counting function in the following form: π2(x)π2(x)=abP(x)μ(ab)[xla,bab]\pi_2(x) - \pi_2(\sqrt{x}) = \sum_{ab\vert P(\sqrt{x})}\mu(ab) \left[\frac{x-l_{a,b}}{ab}\right], where P(z)=pzpP(z)=\prod_{p\le z}p and aa is always odd. Here la,bl_{a,b} is the lowest positive integer so that ala,ba\vert l_{a,b} and b(la,b+2)b\vert (l_{a,b}+2). In the latter part of this work, we discussion three different types of biases in the distribution of twin primes. The first two biases are similar to the biases in primes as reported by Chebyshev, and Oliver and Soundararajan. Our third reported bias is on the difference (DD) between (the first members of) two consecutive twin primes; it is observed that D±1D\pm1 is more likely to be a prime than an odd composite number.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2111.09053,
  title  = {On twin prime distribution and associated biases},
  author = {Shaon Sahoo},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2111.09053},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

18 pages, abstract rewritten to better represent work, some minor changes in texts

R2 v1 2026-06-24T07:41:59.921Z