On smooth gaps between consecutive prime numbers
The intractable twin-prime conjecture states that there are infinitely many pairs of primes with the gaps between them taking the value~2. The authors consider the easier problem of whether the gaps between consecutive primes may infinitely often have only relatively small prime divisors. They prove that there exists \(\beta<1\) with the property that there are infinitely many consecutive primes \(p>q\) such that the largest prime divisor of the gap \(p-q\) is at most \(\log^\beta p\). The analysis of the problem and the more precise statement of their result involve the number \[ Z(N;2k)=\sum_{p,q\leq N\atop p-q=2k}\log p\log q, \] which has an expected asymptotic value \({\mathcal E}(k)N\) for large \(N\), with a known formula for \({\mathcal E}(k)\). There is an admissible constant \(C\) with the property that if \(D>C\) and \(A>0\), then for large~\(N\) and \(k<\log^AN\) we have \(Z(N;2k)<D{\mathcal E}(k)N\); thus \textit{E.~Bombieri} and \textit{H.~Davenport} [Proc. R. Soc. Lond., Ser. A 293, 1-18 (1966; Zbl 0151.04201)] showed that \(C=4\) is admissible, and somewhat smaller values for~\(C\) have been obtained by \textit{E.~Bombieri, J. Friedlander} and \textit{H. Iwaniec} [Acta Math. 156, 203-251 (1986; Zbl 0588.10042)] and by \textit{E.~Fouvry} and \textit{F.~Grupp} [J. Reine Angew. Math. 370, 101-126 (1986; Zbl 0588.10051)]. The main result of the paper is that, for the present gap problem, one may take any \(\beta>\exp(-1/2C)\); if the prime gap is not restricted to consecutive primes then one may replace \(\beta\) by~\(\beta^2\). The work was inspired by the paper of Bombieri and Davenport, and the authors introduce a sieving procedure to tackle the problem. The method can be used to deal with other multiplicative constraints on the gaps; thus, the authors also prove that the gaps between consecutive primes are infinitely often fifth-power-free, and that the ratio between successive gaps may deviate significantly from~1.
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