The Bateman-Horn conjecture: heuristic, history, and applications (Q2221493)

Let \(f_1, f_2,\dots ,f_k \in \mathbb{Z}[x]\) be distinct irreducible polynomials with positive leading coefficients. Also let \(Q(f_1, f_2,\dots ,f_k;x)\) be the number of positive integers \(n\) with \(n\leq x\), for which all values of \(f_1(n), f_2(n),\dots ,f_k(n)\) are simultaneously prime. The Bateman-Horn conjecture asserts that \[ Q(f_1, f_2,\dots ,f_k;x)\sim\frac{C(f_1, f_2,\dots ,f_k)}{\prod_{i=1}^k\deg f_i}\int_2^x\frac{dt}{\log^k t}, \] where the constant \(C(f_1, f_2,\dots ,f_k)\) is given in terms of \(w_f(p)\), the number of solutions to \(f(x)=f_1(x)f_2(x)\cdots f_k(x)\equiv 0 \pmod{p}\), as follows \[ C(f_1, f_2,\dots ,f_k)=\prod_p\left(1-\frac{1}{p}\right)^{-k}\left(1-\frac{w_f(p)}{p}\right). \] Although this conjecture is a far-reaching statement about the distribution of the prime numbers, and the only case that has been proven is the prime number theorem for arithmetic progressions, many well-known theorems, such as the prime number theorem and the Green-Tao theorem, follow from it. The conjecture also implies a variety of unproven conjectures, such as the twin prime conjecture and Landau's conjecture asserting that there are infinitely many primes of the form \(n^2+1\). In this nice paper under review, the authors provide a detailed exposition of the Bateman-Horn conjecture, in an easy and fluent mathematics, even followable by an undergraduate. After providing required preliminaries in detail in Section 2, in Section 3 they go through a careful heuristic argument arriving at the Bateman-Horn conjecture, more precisely appearing the constant \(C(f_1, f_2,\dots ,f_k)\). They comeback to analyse this constant in detail in Section 5. Meanwhile, in Section 4 the authors review some of the historical background. In particular, they include many personal recollections of Roger Horn that have never before been published. Section 6 is devoted to a number of important instances and consequences of the single polynomial case of the conjecture, while ramifications of the multiple polynomial case are discussed in Section 7. Finally, the authors discuss some limitations of the Bateman-Horn conjecture in Section 8, based on the fact that this conjecture, like prime number theorem and the Riemann hypothesis, is a statement about the global distribution of prime numbers, and it says little about local behaviour of them. So, for example, it does not appear to resolve Legendre's conjecture (existence of primes between two consecutive squares) and Goldbach conjecture.