A note on primes between consecutive powers (Q2389064)

The present paper is concerned with the distribution of primes between two consecutive powers of integers, as a natural generalization of the well known conjecture that all intervals of type \([n^2, (n + 1)^2]\) contain at least one prime. The famous result of M. N. Huxley about the distribution of prime in short intervals implies that all intervals of type \([n^{\alpha}, (n + 1)^{\alpha}]\) contain the expected number of primes for \(\alpha > 12/5\) and \(n \to \infty\). This was refined by D. R. Heath-Brown to \(\alpha \geq 12/5\). Assuming some heuristic hypotheses, the author establishes the upper bounds for the exceptional set of the distribution of primes between two consecutive powers of integers. The first hypothesis concerns the counting functions \(N(\sigma, T)\) and \(N^{*}(\sigma, T)\), where \(N(\sigma, T)\) is the number of zeros \(\rho = \beta + i\gamma\) of the Riemann zeta-function which satisfy \(\sigma \leq \beta \leq 1\) and \(|\gamma| \leq T\), and \(N^{*}(\sigma, T)\) is the number of ordered sets of zeros \(\rho_j = \beta_j + i \gamma_j\) \((1 \leq j \leq 4)\), each counted by \(N(\sigma, T)\), for which \(|\gamma_1 + \gamma_2 - \gamma_3 - \gamma_4| \leq 1\). Under the assumption that there is a constant \(T_0\) such that \[ N^{*}(\sigma, T) \ll \frac{N(\sigma, T)^4}{T} \quad (1/2 \leq \sigma \leq 1, T \geq T_0), \eqno (1) \] the author proves that all intervals of type \([n^{\alpha}, (n + 1)^{\alpha}] \subset [N, 2N]\), with \(O((N^{1/\alpha})^{\eta(\alpha) + \varepsilon})\) exceptions \((\varepsilon > 0)\), contain the expected number of primes, where \[ \eta(\alpha) \begin{cases} 4\alpha + 12 - 8\sqrt{3\alpha}, &\text{if \(27/16 \leq \alpha \leq 48/25\),} \\ 12/5 - \alpha, &\text{if \(48/25 \leq \alpha \leq 12/5\).} \end{cases} \] A corollary of this result was proved in a separate paper, that under the assumption of (1), all intervals of type \([n^2, (n + 1)^2] \subset [N, 2N]\), with \(O(N^{1/5 + \varepsilon})\) exceptions, contain the expected number of primes. Next, assuming (1) and the Density Hypothesis, which states that for every \(\eta > 0\) \[ N(\sigma, T) \ll T^{2(1 - \sigma) + \eta} \quad (1/2 \leq \sigma \leq 1), \] the author proves that, if \(\varepsilon > 0\) and \(1 < \alpha \leq 2\), all intervals of type \([n^{\alpha}, (n + 1)^{\alpha}] \subset [N, 2N]\), with at most \(O((N^{1/\alpha})^{\eta(\alpha) + \varepsilon})\) exceptions, contain the expected number of primes, where \(\eta(\alpha) = 2(2 - \alpha)\). Finally, a lemma about the structure of the exceptional set for the asymptotic formula \[ \pi(x + h(x)) - \pi(x) \sim h(x) \quad (x \to \infty) \] is proved, where \(h(x)\) is an increasing function such that \(x^{\varepsilon} \leq h(x) \leq x\) for some \(\varepsilon > 0\).