English

Chebyshev's bias and generalized Riemann hypothesis

Number Theory 2013-03-20 v1

Abstract

It is well known that li(x)>π(x)li(x)>\pi(x) (i) up to the (very large) Skewes' number x11.40×10316x_1 \sim 1.40 \times 10^{316} \cite{Bays00}. But, according to a Littlewood's theorem, there exist infinitely many xx that violate the inequality, due to the specific distribution of non-trivial zeros γ\gamma of the Riemann zeta function ζ(s)\zeta(s), encoded by the equation li(x)π(x)xlogx[1+2γsin(γlogx)γ]li(x)-\pi(x)\approx \frac{\sqrt{x}}{\log x}[1+2 \sum_{\gamma}\frac{\sin (\gamma \log x)}{\gamma}] (1). If Riemann hypothesis (RH) holds, (i) may be replaced by the equivalent statement li[ψ(x)]>π(x)li[\psi(x)]>\pi(x) (ii) due to Robin \cite{Robin84}. A statement similar to (i) was found by Chebyshev that π(x;4,3)π(x;4,1)>0\pi(x;4,3)-\pi(x;4,1)>0 (iii) holds for any x<26861x<26861 \cite{Rubin94} (the notation π(x;k,l)\pi(x;k,l) means the number of primes up to xx and congruent to lmodkl\mod k). The {\it Chebyshev's bias}(iii) is related to the generalized Riemann hypothesis (GRH) and occurs with a logarithmic density 0.9959\approx 0.9959 \cite{Rubin94}. In this paper, we reformulate the Chebyshev's bias for a general modulus qq as the inequality B(x;q,R)B(x;q,N)>0B(x;q,R)-B(x;q,N)>0 (iv), where B(x;k,l)=li[ϕ(k)ψ(x;k,l)]ϕ(k)π(x;k,l)B(x;k,l)=li[\phi(k)*\psi(x;k,l)]-\phi(k)*\pi(x;k,l) is a counting function introduced in Robin's paper \cite{Robin84} and RR resp. NN) is a quadratic residue modulo qq (resp. a non-quadratic residue). We investigate numerically the case q=4q=4 and a few prime moduli pp. Then, we proove that (iv) is equivalent to GRH for the modulus qq.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1112.2398,
  title  = {Chebyshev's bias and generalized Riemann hypothesis},
  author = {Adel Alamadhi and Michel Planat and Patrick Solé},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1112.2398},
  year   = {2013}
}

Comments

9 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-21T19:49:27.052Z