Small gaps between primes or almost primes

Let $\{p_j(n)\}_{j=1}^{\omega(n)}$ denote the increasing sequence of distinct prime factors of an integer $n$. We provide details for the proof of a statement of Erd\H{o}s implying that, for any function $\xi(n)$ tending to infinity with $n$, we have $$f(n):=\max_{1\leqslant j<\omega(n)}\log \Big({\log p_{j+1}(n)\over \log p_j(n)}\Big)=\log_3n+O(\xi(n))$$ for almost all integers $n$.

For each $m\geq 1$, there exist infinitely many primes $p_1<p_2<\ldots<p_{m+1}$ such that $p_{m+1}-p_1=O(m^4e^{8m})$ and $p_j+2$ has at most $\frac{16m}{\log 2}+\frac{5\log m}{\log 2}+37$ prime divisors for each $j$.

Let $X$ be a large parameter. We will first give a new estimate for the integral moments of primes in short intervals of the type $(p,p+h]$, where $p\leq X$ is a prime number and $h=\odi{X}$. Then we will apply this to prove that for every $\lambda>1/2$ there exists a positive proportion of primes $p\leq X$ such that the interval $(p,p+ \lambda\log X]$ contains at least a prime number. As a consequence we improve Cheer and Goldston's result on the size of real numbers $\lambd...

In this paper, using the well known fact that the series of reciprocals of primes diverges, we obtain a general inequality for gaps of consecutive primes that holds for infinitely many primes. As it is shown the key ingredient for this direct approach is a consequence of the the Kummer's characterization of summable sequences of positive terms. Some interesting consequences are then presented. In particular, we show how the twin-prime conjecture is related to our main result.

We propose the formula for the number of pairs of consecutive primes $p_n, p_{n+1}<x$ separated by gap $d=p_{n+1}-p_n$ expressed directly by the number of all primes $<x$, i.e. by $\pi(x)$. As the application of this formula we formulate 7 conjectures, among others for the maximal gap between two consecutive primes smaller than $x$, for the generalized Brun's constants and the first occurrence of a given gap $d$. Also the leading term $\log \log(x)$ in the prime harmonic sum ...

We generalise Zhang's and Pintz recent results on bounded prime gaps to give a lower bound for the the number of prime pairs bounded by 6*10^7 in the short interval $[x,x+x (\log x)^{-A}]$. Our result follows only by analysing Zhang's proof of Theorem 1, but we also explain how a sharper variant of Zhang's Theorem 2 would imply the same result for shorter intervals.

Let $p_{n}$ denote the $n$th prime and for any fixed positive integer $k$ and $X\geq 2$, put \[ G_{k}(X):=\max _{p _{n+k}\leq X} \min \{ p_{n+1}-p_{n}, \ldots , p_{n+k}-p_{n+k-1} \}. \] Ford, Maynard and Tao proved that there exists an effective abosolute constant $c_{LG}>0$ such that \[ G_{k}(X)\geq \frac{c_{LG}}{k^{2}}\frac{\log X \log \log X \log \log \log \log X}{\log \log \log X} \] holds for any sufficiently large $X$. The main purpose of this paper is to determine the ...

Goldston, Pintz and Y\i ld\i r\i m have shown that if the primes have `level of distribution' $\theta$ for some $\theta>1/2$ then there exists a constant $C(\theta)$, such that there are infinitely many integers $n$ for which the interval $[n,n+C(\theta)]$ contains two primes. We show under the same assumption that for any integer $k\ge 1$ there exists constants $D(\theta,k)$ and $r(\theta,k)$, such that there are infinitely many integers $n$ for which the interval $[n,n+D(\t...

The article focuses on the problems of prime gaps and zero spacings. Possible solutions of several related problems such as the greatest lower bound, the least upper bound of the zero spacings, and the least upper bound of the prime gaps are considered.

Let $E_k$ be the set of positive integers having exactly $k$ prime factors. We show that almost all intervals $[x,x+\log^{1+\varepsilon} x]$ contain $E_3$ numbers, and almost all intervals $[x,x+\log^{3.51} x]$ contain $E_2$ numbers. By this we mean that there are only $o(X)$ integers $1\leq x\leq X$ for which the mentioned intervals do not contain such numbers. The result for $E_3$ numbers is optimal up to the $\varepsilon$ in the exponent. The theorem on $E_2$ numbers impro...