On the distribution of \(p^{\theta}\,mod\,1\) (Q1061777)

Let \(1/3<\theta <1\), \(0<\epsilon\), and \(0\leq w<1\). The author proves (among other things) that if \(x\geq 1\) and \(x^{-3/10}\leq \Delta \leq 1/2\) then \[ (1)\quad card\{p\leq x:\quad \| p^{\theta}-w\| <\Delta \}\geq (2/3)\Delta \pi (x)+O(x^{(1+\theta)/2+\epsilon}). \] The exponent \((1+\theta)/2\) is the same as can be obtained from the Riemann hypothesis. An immediate consequence of (1) is that if \(2/5\leq \theta <1\), then there are infinitely many primes p such that \[ \| p^{\theta}-w\| <p^{-(1-\theta)/2+\epsilon}. \] The proof uses sieve methods together with contour integral techniques and the approximate functional equation of the Riemann zeta-function. A novel aspect of the argument is the use of Richert's elegant generalization of the Buchstab identity. The author mentions that his methods yield results analogous to (1) may be obtained when \(\theta <1/3\), but at the expense of increasing the error term.