The distribution of spacings between quadratic residues, II

We use recent bounds on bilinear sums with modular square roots to study the distribution of solutions to congruences $x^2 \equiv p \pmod q$ with primes $p\le P$ and integers $q \le Q$. This can be considered as a combined scenario of Duke, Friedlander and Iwaniec with averaging only over the modulus $q$ and of Dunn, Kerr, Shparlinski and Zaharescu with averaging only over $p$.

Let $\chi$ be a Dirichlet character modulo $q$, let $L(s, \chi)$ be the attached Dirichlet $L$-function, and let $L^\prime(s, \chi)$ denotes its derivative with respect to the complex variable $s$. The main purpose of this paper is to give an asymptotic formula for the $2k$-th power mean value of $\left|L^\prime/L(1, \chi)\right|$ when $\chi$ ranges a primitive Dirichlet character modulo $q$ for $q$ prime. We derive some consequences, in particular a bound for the number of $...

Let $p$ be a large prime, and let $C$ be a hyperelliptic curve over $\mathbb{F}_p$. We study the distribution of the $x$-coordinates in short intervals when the $y$-coordinates lie in a prescribed interval, and the distribution of the distance between consecutive $x$-coordinates with the same property. Next, let $g(P,P_0)$ be a rational function of two points on $C$. We study the distribution of the above distances with an extra condition that $g(P_i,P_{i+1})$ lies in a presc...

In this paper, we improve the error term in a previous paper on an asymptotic formula for the number of squarefull numbers in an arithmetic progression.

We prove that the primes below $x$ are, on average, equidistributed in arithmetic progressions to smooth moduli of size up to $x^{1/2+1/40-\epsilon}$. The exponent of distribution $\tfrac{1}{2} + \tfrac{1}{40}$ improves on a result of Polymath, who had previously obtained the exponent $\tfrac{1}{2} + \tfrac{7}{300}$. As a consequence, we improve results on intervals of bounded length which contain many primes, showing that $\liminf_{n \rightarrow \infty} (p_{n+m}-p_n) = O(\ex...

Let $a$ be a positive integer, and let $\sigma(a)$ denote the least natural number $s$ such that an integer square lies between $s^2 a$ and $s^2 (a+1)$; let $\tau_s(a)$ denote the number of such integer squares. The function $\sigma(a)$ and the sequence $(\tau_s(a))_{s \in \mathbb{Z}^+}$ are studied, and are observed to exhibit surprisingly chaotic behavior. Upper- and lower-bounds for $\sigma(a)$ are derived, as are criteria for when they are sharp.

We prove new mean value theorems for primes in arithmetic progressions to moduli larger than $x^{1/2}$. Our main result shows that the primes are equidistributed for a fixed residue class over all moduli of size $x^{1/2+\delta}$ with a 'convenient sized' factor. As a consequence, the expected asymptotic holds for all but $O(\delta Q)$ moduli $q\sim Q=x^{1/2+\delta}$ and we get results for moduli as large as $x^{11/21}$. Our proof extends previous techniques of Bombieri, Fou...

We show that for any fixed $\eps>0$, there are numbers $\delta>0$ and $p_0\ge 2$ with the following property: for every prime $p\ge p_0$ and every integer $N$ such that $p^{1/(4\sqrt{e})+\eps}\le N\le p$, the sequence $1,2,...,N$ contains at least $\delta N$ quadratic non-residues modulo $p$. We use this result to obtain strong upper bounds on the sizes of the least quadratic non-residues in Beatty and Piatetski--Shapiro sequences.

We prove some asymptotic formulae concerning the distribution of the index of Farey fractions of order Q as $Q\to \infty$.

This is an expanded account of three lectures on the distribution of prime numbers given at the Montreal NATO school on equidistribution.