On Gaussian primes in sparse sets

One of \textit{E. Landau}'s famous problems [Jahresber. Dtsch. Math.-Ver. 21, 208--228 (1912; JFM 43.0264.01)] asks for a proof of the existence of infinitely many primes $p$ of the shape $p = n^2 + 1$ with $n$ integer. This motivated efforts to find primes of the shape \N\[\N p = n^2 + b^2 \tag{1}\N\]\Nwith $n, b$ integer and $b$ restricted to belong to a special set $B\subset {\mathbb N}$, which we aim to take as sparse as possible, with the hope of exploiting the algebraic properties of the norm form $n^2 + b^2$ and arithmetic in ${\mathbb Q}(i)$. \textit{E. Fouvry} and \textit{H. Iwaniec}'s early work [Acta Arith. 79, No. 3, 249--287 (1997; Zbl 0881.11070)] was concerned with sets $B$ not sparser than powers of logarithms (such as the set of primes). Then the first instance of sets of power density was \textit{J. Friedlander} and \textit{H. Iwaniec}'s work [Ann. Math. (2) 148, No. 3, 945--1040 (1998; Zbl 0926.11068)] where they found an asymptotic formula for such primes with $B$ itself the set of squares (thus $p = n^2 + c^4$ for some integer $c$). We mention also a recent result in this direction (posterior to the paper under review) due to \textit{B. J. Green} and \textit{M. Sawhney} [``Primes of the form $p^2 + nq^2$, Preprint, \url{arXiv:2410.04189}], which restricts \textit{both} $n$ and $b$ to be prime numbers.\N\NHere the author proves that there exist infinitely many primes of the shape (1) whenever $B$ is \emph{any} set not too sparse in the sense that \N\[\N|B \cap [1, X]| \gg X^{1-\delta} \tag{2}\N\]\N for some positive~$\delta$. The generality of the statement is striking; no particular algebraic property of $B$ is assumed. The author also proves an asymptotic formula for the number of such primes, and for weighted count of the same type as Fouvry-Iwaniec's original statement.\N\NThe author's result that condition (2) is sufficient for counting primes of the shape (1) would follow from Fouvry-Iwaniec's arguments if we knew that Hecke $L$-functions for ${\mathbb Q}(i)$ satisfied the Riemann hypothesis. Thus the main achievement in the paper is to show that the arguments can be carried out without this hypothesis. This is done by a subtle reworking of the type I / type II estimates from Fouvry-Iwaniec's arguments, isolating the contribution from characters of low conductors (such as those associated to Siegel zeroes), and keeping track of the possible way that $B$ can be correlated with them.

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