Prime chains and Pratt trees (Q607663)

A prime chain is a sequence \(p_1,\ldots,p_k\) of primes for which \(p_{j+1}\equiv 1\pmod {p_j}\) for each \(j\). Let \(N(x,p)\) be the number of prime chains with \(p_1=p\) and \(\frac{p_k}{p_1}\leq x\). The authors prove that for \(p\geq 2\) and \(x\geq 20\) \[ N(x;p)\leq x\exp\left(\frac{\log x (\log\log\log x+O(1))}{\log \log x}\right). \] Let \(f(p)\) be the number of prime chains with \(p_k=p\). Then we have \[ f(p)\geq 0.378\log p \] for almost all primes \(p\). For all \(x\geq 3\) and any positive integer \(h\), \[ |\{p\leq x:f(p)=h\}|\leq \left(\frac{6\log x}{h}\right)^h. \] Let \(H(p)\) be the length of the longest prime chain with \(p_k=p\). It holds that \[ H(p)\leq (\log p)^{0.9503} \] for almost all \(p\). They introduce a probabilistic model of \(H(p)\), based on the theory of branching random walks, which suggests that for most \(p\leq x\), \(H(p)\) stays very close to \(e\log\log x\).