English

Predicting maximal gaps in sets of primes

Number Theory 2020-11-24 v4

Abstract

Let q>r1q>r\ge1 be coprime integers. Let Pc=Pc(q,r,H){\mathbb P}_c={\mathbb P}_c(q,r,{\cal H}) be an increasing sequence of primes pp satisfying two conditions: (i) prp\equiv r (mod qq) and (ii) pp starts a prime kk-tuple with a given pattern H{\cal H}. Let πc(x)\pi_c(x) be the number of primes in Pc{\mathbb P}_c not exceeding xx. We heuristically derive formulas predicting the growth trend of the maximal gap Gc(x)=maxpx(pp)G_c(x)=\max_{p'\le x}(p'-p) between successive primes p,pPcp,p'\in{\mathbb P}_c. Extensive computations for primes up to 101410^{14} show that a simple trend formula Gc(x)xπc(x)(logπc(x)+Ok(1))G_c(x) \sim {x\over\pi_c(x)}\cdot(\log \pi_c(x) + O_k(1)) works well for maximal gaps between initial primes of kk-tuples with k2k\ge2 (e.g., twin primes, prime triplets, etc.) in residue class rr (mod qq). For k=1k=1, however, a more sophisticated formula Gc(x)xπc(x)(logπc2(x)x+O(logq))G_c(x) \sim {x\over\pi_c(x)}\cdot\big(\log{\pi_c^2(x)\over x}+O(\log q)\big) gives a better prediction of maximal gap sizes. The latter includes the important special case of maximal gaps in the sequence of all primes (k=1k=1, q=2q=2, r=1r=1). The distribution of appropriately rescaled maximal gaps Gc(x)G_c(x) is close to the Gumbel extreme value distribution. Computations suggest that almost all maximal gaps satisfy a generalized strong form of Cramer's conjecture. We also conjecture that the number of maximal gaps between primes in Pc{\mathbb P}_c below xx is Ok(logx)O_k(\log x).

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1901.03785,
  title  = {Predicting maximal gaps in sets of primes},
  author = {Alexei Kourbatov and Marek Wolf},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1901.03785},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

30 pages, 10 figures, 1 table. Errata (last page); URL ref.[3] updated. Sequel to arXiv:1102.0481, arXiv:1610.03340, arXiv:1709.05508

R2 v1 2026-06-23T07:09:34.135Z