Related papers: On a conjecture of Pomerance

The degree of insulation of a prime $p$ is defined as the largest interval around it in which no other prime exists. Based on this, the $n$-th prime $p_{n}$ is said to be insulated if and only if its degree of insulation is higher than its…

In this paper, we develop Furstenberg's proof of infinity of primes, and prove several results about prime divisors of sequences of integers, including the celebrated Schur's theorem. In particular, we give a simple proof of a classical…

We study values of k for which the interval (kn,(k+1)n) contains a prime for every n>1. We prove that the list of such integers k includes k=1,2,3,5,9,14, and no others, at least for k<=50,000,000. For every known k of this list, we give a…

For a fixed quadratic irreducible polynomial $f$ with no fixed prime factors at prime arguments, we prove that there exist infinitely many primes $p$ such that $f(p)$ has at most 4 prime factors, improving a classical result of Richert who…

The Schinzel Hypothesis is a conjecture about irreducible polynomials in one variable over the integers: under some standard condition, they should assume infinitely many prime values at integers. We consider a relative version: if the…

Let $p$ be a prime. We define $S(p)$ the smallest number $k$ such that every positive integer is a sum of at most $k$ squares of integers that are not divisible by $p$. In this article, we prove that $S(2)=10$, $S(3)=6$, $S(5)=5$, and…

Let $F$ be a number field, $O_F$ the integral closure of $\mathbb{Z}$ in $F$ and $P(T) \in O_F[T]$ a monic separable polynomial such that $P(0) \not=0$ and $P(1) \not=0$. We give precise sufficient conditions on a given positive integer $k$…

We prove the infinitude of shifted primes $p-1$ without prime factors above $p^{0.2844}$. This refines $p^{0.2961}$ from Baker and Harman in 1998. Consequently, we obtain an improved lower bound on the the distribution of Carmichael…

We introduce a method for showing that there exist prime numbers which are very close together. The method depends on the level of distribution of primes in arithmetic progressions. Assuming the Elliott-Halberstam conjecture, we prove that…

Let $p$ be a prime, and let $f(x)$ be an integer-valued polynomial. By a combinatorial approach, we obtain a nontrivial lower bound of the $p$-adic order of the sum $$\sum_{k=r(mod p^{\beta})}\binom{n}{k}(-1)^k f([(k-r)/p^{\alpha}]),$$…

We say that a permutation $\pi=\pi_1\pi_2\cdots \pi_n \in \mathfrak{S}_n$ has a peak at index $i$ if $\pi_{i-1} < \pi_i > \pi_{i+1}$. Let $\mathcal{P}(\pi)$ denote the set of indices where $\pi$ has a peak. Given a set $S$ of positive…

An old question of Erdos asks if there exists, for each number N, a finite set S of integers greater than N and residue classes r(n) mod n for n in S whose union is all the integers. We prove that if $\sum_{n\in S} 1/n$ is bounded for such…

Let l>=1 be an arbitrary odd integer and p,q and r primes. We show that there exist infinitely many ternary cyclotomic polynomials \Phi_{pqr}(x) with l^2+3l+5<= p<q<r such that the set of coefficients of each of them consists of the p…

We consider the distance to the nearest integer of f(p), where f is a quadratic polynomial with irrational leading coefficient. This distance is very small as a function of p, for infinitely many primes p. We give a 14% improvement in the…

We show that if there exists an integer subject to some congruence conditions that cannot be written as the sum of the norm of an ideal in $\mathbb{Z}[\exp(2\pi i/2^k)]$ and at most $k$ powers of $2$, $k\geq 3$, then there are infinitely…

The Index Conjecture in zero-sum theory states that when $n$ is coprime to $6$ and $k$ equals $4$, every minimal zero-sum sequence of length $k$ modulo $n$ has index $1$. While other values of $(k,n)$ have been studied thoroughly in the…

Let $\epsilon\in \{-1,1\}$. A sequence of prime numbers $p_1, p_2, p_3, ...$, such that $p_i=2p_{i-1}+\epsilon$ for all $i$, is called a {\it Cunningham chain} of the first or second kind, depending on whether $\epsilon =1$ or -1…

We study additive properties of consecutive prime numbers and the primality of the sums they generate. For a given prime number $p_n$, we consider the sums \[ S_k(p_n) = p_n + p_{n+1} + \cdots + p_{n+k-1}, \] where $k \ge 3$ is an odd…

Let p>3 be a prime number and let r be an integer with 1<r<p-1. For each r, let moreover G_r denote the unique quotient of the maximal class pro-p group of size p^{r+1}. We show that the mod-p cohomology ring of G_r has depth one and that,…

Let $N$ be a positive integer and let $S_N$ be the set of polynomials with integer coefficients, degree less than $N$, and minimal positive integral over $[0,1]$. D. Bazzanella initiated the study of $S_N$ because of its relation to the…