Analytic number theory

In mathematics, analytic number theory is a branch of

number theory that uses methods from mathematical analysis
to solve problems about the integers.[1] It is often said to have
begun with Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet's 1837
introduction of Dirichlet L-functions to give the first proof of
Dirichlet's theorem on arithmetic progressions.[1][2] It is well
known for its results on prime numbers (involving the Prime
Number Theorem and Riemann zeta function) and additive
number theory (such as the Goldbach conjecture and
Waring's problem).

Contents
Branches of analytic number theory
History
Riemann zeta function ζ(s) in the complex plane.
Precursors
The color of a point s encodes the value of ζ(s):
Dirichlet colors close to black denote values close to zero,
Chebyshev while hue encodes the value's argument.
Riemann
Hadamard and de la Vallée-Poussin
Modern times
Problems and results
Multiplicative number theory
Additive number theory
Diophantine problems
Methods of analytic number theory
Dirichlet series
Riemann zeta function
See also
Notes
References
Further reading

Branches of analytic number theory

Analytic number theory can be split up into two major parts, divided more by the type of problems they attempt to
solve than fundamental differences in technique.

Multiplicative number theory deals with the distribution of the prime numbers, such as estimating
the number of primes in an interval, and includes the prime number theorem and Dirichlet's
theorem on primes in arithmetic progressions.
Additive number theory is concerned with the additive structure of the integers, such as Goldbach's
conjecture that every even number greater than 2 is the sum of two primes. One of the main results
 in additive number theory is the solution to Waring's problem.

History

Precursors

Much of analytic number theory was inspired by the prime number theorem. Let π(x) be the prime-counting
function that gives the number of primes less than or equal to x, for any real number x. For example, π(10) = 4
because there are four prime numbers (2, 3, 5 and 7) less than or equal to 10. The prime number theorem then
states that x / ln(x) is a good approximation to π(x), in the sense that the limit of the quotient of the two functions
π(x) and x / ln(x) as x approaches infinity is 1:

known as the asymptotic law of distribution of prime numbers.

Adrien-Marie Legendre conjectured in 1797 or 1798 that π(a) is approximated by the function a/(A ln(a) + B),
where A and B are unspecified constants. In the second edition of his book on number theory (1808) he then made
a more precise conjecture, with A = 1 and B ≈ −1.08366. Carl Friedrich Gauss considered the same question: "Im
Jahr 1792 oder 1793", according to his own recollection nearly sixty years later in a letter to Encke (1849), he
wrote in his logarithm table (he was then 15 or 16) the short note "Primzahlen unter ". But Gauss
never published this conjecture. In 1838 Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet came up with his own approximating
function, the logarithmic integral li(x) (under the slightly different form of a series, which he communicated to
Gauss). Both Legendre's and Dirichlet's formulas imply the same conjectured asymptotic equivalence of π(x) and
x / ln(x) stated above, although it turned out that Dirichlet's approximation is considerably better if one considers
the differences instead of quotients.

Dirichlet

Johann Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet is credited with the creation of analytic number theory,[3] a field in which
he found several deep results and in proving them introduced some fundamental tools, many of which were later
named after him. In 1837 he published Dirichlet's theorem on arithmetic progressions, using mathematical analysis
concepts to tackle an algebraic problem and thus creating the branch of analytic number theory. In proving the
theorem, he introduced the Dirichlet characters and L-functions.[3][4] In 1841 he generalized his arithmetic
progressions theorem from integers to the ring of Gaussian integers .[5]

Chebyshev

In two papers from 1848 and 1850, the Russian mathematician Pafnuty L'vovich Chebyshev attempted to prove
the asymptotic law of distribution of prime numbers. His work is notable for the use of the zeta function ζ(s) (for
real values of the argument "s", as are works of Leonhard Euler, as early as 1737) predating Riemann's celebrated
memoir of 1859, and he succeeded in proving a slightly weaker form of the asymptotic law, namely, that if the
limit of π(x)/(x/ln(x)) as x goes to infinity exists at all, then it is necessarily equal to one.[6] He was able to prove
unconditionally that this ratio is bounded above and below by two explicitly given constants near to 1 for all x.[7]
Although Chebyshev's paper did not prove the Prime Number Theorem, his estimates for π(x) were strong enough
for him to prove Bertrand's postulate that there exists a prime number between n and 2n for any integer n ≥ 2.

Riemann
Bernhard Riemann made some famous contributions to modern analytic "…es ist sehr wahrscheinlich,
number theory. In a single short paper (the only one he published on the dass alle Wurzeln reell sind.
subject of number theory), he investigated the Riemann zeta function and Hiervon wäre allerdings ein
established its importance for understanding the distribution of prime strenger Beweis zu wünschen;
numbers. He made a series of conjectures about properties of the zeta ich habe indess die
function, one of which is the well-known Riemann hypothesis. Aufsuchung desselben nach
einigen flüchtigen
vergeblichen Versuchen
Hadamard and de la Vallée-Poussin vorläufig bei Seite gelassen,
da er für den nächsten Zweck
Extending the ideas of Riemann, two proofs of the prime number theorem meiner Untersuchung
were obtained independently by Jacques Hadamard and Charles Jean de la entbehrlich schien."
Vallée-Poussin and appeared in the same year (1896). Both proofs used
methods from complex analysis, establishing as a main step of the proof that "…it is very probable that all
the Riemann zeta function ζ(s) is non-zero for all complex values of the roots are real. Of course one
variable s that have the form s = 1 + it with t > 0.[9] would wish for a rigorous
proof here; I have for the time
being, after some fleeting vain
Modern times attempts, provisionally put
aside the search for this, as it
The biggest technical change after 1950 has been the development of sieve appears dispensable for the
methods,[10] particularly in multiplicative problems. These are combinatorial next objective of my
in nature, and quite varied. The extremal branch of combinatorial theory has investigation."
in return been greatly influenced by the value placed in analytic number
theory on quantitative upper and lower bounds. Another recent development
is probabilistic number theory,[11] which uses methods from probability Riemann's statement of the
theory to estimate the distribution of number theoretic functions, such as how Riemann hypothesis, from his
many prime divisors a number has. 1859 paper.[8] (He was
discussing a version of the
Developments within analytic number theory are often refinements of earlier zeta function, modified so that
techniques, which reduce the error terms and widen their applicability. For its roots are real rather than on
example, the circle method of Hardy and Littlewood was conceived as the critical line.)
applying to power series near the unit circle in the complex plane; it is now
thought of in terms of finite exponential sums (that is, on the unit circle, but
with the power series truncated). The needs of diophantine approximation
are for auxiliary functions that are not generating functions—their coefficients are constructed by use of a
pigeonhole principle—and involve several complex variables. The fields of diophantine approximation and
transcendence theory have expanded, to the point that the techniques have been applied to the Mordell conjecture.

Problems and results

Theorems and results within analytic number theory tend not to be exact structural results about the integers, for
which algebraic and geometrical tools are more appropriate. Instead, they give approximate bounds and estimates
for various number theoretical functions, as the following examples illustrate.

Multiplicative number theory

Euclid showed that there are infinitely many prime numbers. An important question is to determine the asymptotic
distribution of the prime numbers; that is, a rough description of how many primes are smaller than a given
number. Gauss, amongst others, after computing a large list of primes, conjectured that the number of primes less
than or equal to a large number N is close to the value of the integral
In 1859 Bernhard Riemann used complex analysis and a special meromorphic function now known as the
Riemann zeta function to derive an analytic expression for the number of primes less than or equal to a real
number x. Remarkably, the main term in Riemann's formula was exactly the above integral, lending substantial
weight to Gauss's conjecture. Riemann found that the error terms in this expression, and hence the manner in
which the primes are distributed, are closely related to the complex zeros of the zeta function. Using Riemann's
ideas and by getting more information on the zeros of the zeta function, Jacques Hadamard and Charles Jean de la
Vallée-Poussin managed to complete the proof of Gauss's conjecture. In particular, they proved that if

then

This remarkable result is what is now known as the prime number theorem. It is a central result in analytic number
theory. Loosely speaking, it states that given a large number N, the number of primes less than or equal to N is
about N/log(N).

More generally, the same question can be asked about the number of primes in any arithmetic progression a+nq
for any integer n. In one of the first applications of analytic techniques to number theory, Dirichlet proved that any
arithmetic progression with a and q coprime contains infinitely many primes. The prime number theorem can be
generalised to this problem; letting

then if a and q are coprime,

There are also many deep and wide-ranging conjectures in number theory whose proofs seem too difficult for
current techniques, such as the twin prime conjecture which asks whether there are infinitely many primes p such
that p + 2 is prime. On the assumption of the Elliott–Halberstam conjecture it has been proven recently that there
are infinitely many primes p such that p + k is prime for some positive even k at most 12. Also, it has been proven
unconditionally (i.e. not depending on unproven conjectures) that there are infinitely many primes p such that p + k
is prime for some positive even k at most 246.

Additive number theory

One of the most important problems in additive number theory is Waring's problem, which asks whether it is
possible, for any k ≥ 2, to write any positive integer as the sum of a bounded number of kth powers,

The case for squares, k = 2, was answered by Lagrange in 1770, who proved that every positive integer is the sum
of at most four squares. The general case was proved by Hilbert in 1909, using algebraic techniques which gave
no explicit bounds. An important breakthrough was the application of analytic tools to the problem by Hardy and
Littlewood. These techniques are known as the circle method, and give explicit upper bounds for the function
G(k), the smallest number of kth powers needed, such as Vinogradov's bound

Diophantine problems
Diophantine problems are concerned with integer solutions to polynomial equations: one may study the
distribution of solutions, that is, counting solutions according to some measure of "size" or height.

An important example is the Gauss circle problem, which asks for integers points (x y) which satisfy

In geometrical terms, given a circle centered about the origin in the plane with radius r, the problem asks how
many integer lattice points lie on or inside the circle. It is not hard to prove that the answer is , where
as . Again, the difficult part and a great achievement of analytic number theory is
obtaining specific upper bounds on the error term E(r).

It was shown by Gauss that . In general, an O(r) error term would be possible with the unit circle
(or, more properly, the closed unit disk) replaced by the dilates of any bounded planar region with piecewise
smooth boundary. Furthermore, replacing the unit circle by the unit square, the error term for the general problem
can be as large as a linear function of r. Therefore, getting an error bound of the form for some in the
case of the circle is a significant improvement. The first to attain this was Sierpiński in 1906, who showed
. In 1915, Hardy and Landau each showed that one does not have . Since then
the goal has been to show that for each fixed there exists a real number such that
.

In 2000 Huxley showed[12] that , which is the best published result.

Methods of analytic number theory

Dirichlet series

One of the most useful tools in multiplicative number theory are Dirichlet series, which are functions of a complex
variable defined by an infinite series of the form

Depending on the choice of coefficients , this series may converge everywhere, nowhere, or on some half
plane. In many cases, even where the series does not converge everywhere, the holomorphic function it defines
may be analytically continued to a meromorphic function on the entire complex plane. The utility of functions like
this in multiplicative problems can be seen in the formal identity

hence the coefficients of the product of two Dirichlet series are the multiplicative convolutions of the original
coefficients. Furthermore, techniques such as partial summation and Tauberian theorems can be used to get
information about the coefficients from analytic information about the Dirichlet series. Thus a common method for
estimating a multiplicative function is to express it as a Dirichlet series (or a product of simpler Dirichlet series
using convolution identities), examine this series as a complex function and then convert this analytic information
back into information about the original function.

Riemann zeta function

Euler showed that the fundamental theorem of arithmetic implies (at least formally) the Euler product
Euler's proof of the infinity of prime numbers makes use of the divergence of the term at the left hand side for s = 1
(the so-called harmonic series), a purely analytic result. Euler was also the first to use analytical arguments for the
purpose of studying properties of integers, specifically by constructing generating power series. This was the
beginning of analytic number theory.[13]

Later, Riemann considered this function for complex values of s and showed that this function can be extended to
a meromorphic function on the entire plane with a simple pole at s = 1. This function is now known as the
Riemann Zeta function and is denoted by ζ(s). There is a plethora of literature on this function and the function is a
special case of the more general Dirichlet L-functions.

Analytic number theorists are often interested in the error of approximations such as the prime number theorem. In
this case, the error is smaller than x/log x. Riemann's formula for π(x) shows that the error term in this
approximation can be expressed in terms of the zeros of the zeta function. In his 1859 paper, Riemann conjectured
that all the "non-trivial" zeros of ζ lie on the line but never provided a proof of this statement. This
famous and long-standing conjecture is known as the Riemann Hypothesis and has many deep implications in
number theory; in fact, many important theorems have been proved under the assumption that the hypothesis is
true. For example, under the assumption of the Riemann Hypothesis, the error term in the prime number theorem is
.

In the early 20th century G. H. Hardy and Littlewood proved many results about the zeta function in an attempt to
prove the Riemann Hypothesis. In fact, in 1914, Hardy proved that there were infinitely many zeros of the zeta
function on the critical line

This led to several theorems describing the density of the zeros on the critical line.

See also
Maier's matrix method
Automorphic L-function
Automorphic form

Notes
1. Apostol 1976, p. 7.
2. Davenport 2000, p. 1.
3. Gowers, Timothy; June Barrow-Green; Imre Leader (2008). The Princeton companion to
mathematics (https://archive.org/details/princetoncompanio00gowe). Princeton University Press.
pp. 764–765. ISBN 978-0-691-11880-2.
4. Kanemitsu, Shigeru; Chaohua Jia (2002). Number theoretic methods: future trends. Springer.
pp. 271–274. ISBN 978-1-4020-1080-4.
5. Elstrodt, Jürgen (2007). "The Life and Work of Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet (1805–1859)" (http://www.
uni-math.gwdg.de/tschinkel/gauss-dirichlet/elstrodt-new.pdf) (PDF). Clay Mathematics
Proceedings. Retrieved 2007-12-25.
6. N. Costa Pereira (August–September 1985). "A Short Proof of Chebyshev's Theorem". American
Mathematical Monthly. 92 (7): 494–495. doi:10.2307/2322510 (https://doi.org/10.2307%2F232251
0). JSTOR 2322510 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/2322510).
7. M. Nair (February 1982). "On Chebyshev-Type Inequalities for Primes". American Mathematical
Monthly. 89 (2): 126–129. doi:10.2307/2320934 (https://doi.org/10.2307%2F2320934).
JSTOR 2320934 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/2320934).
 8. Riemann, Bernhard (1859), "Ueber die Anzahl der Primzahlen unter einer gegebenen Grösse" (htt
p://www.maths.tcd.ie/pub/HistMath/People/Riemann/Zeta/), Monatsberichte der Berliner Akademie.
In Gesammelte Werke, Teubner, Leipzig (1892), Reprinted by Dover, New York (1953). Original
manuscript (http://www.claymath.org/millennium/Riemann_Hypothesis/1859_manuscript/)
Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20130523061451/http://www.claymath.org/millennium/Riem
ann_Hypothesis/1859_manuscript/) May 23, 2013, at the Wayback Machine (with English
translation). Reprinted in (Borwein et al. 2008) and (Edwards 1874)
9. Ingham, A.E. (1990). The Distribution of Prime Numbers. Cambridge University Press. pp. 2–5.
ISBN 0-521-39789-8.
10. Tenenbaum 1995, p. 56.
11. Tenenbaum 1995, p. 267.
12. M.N. Huxley, Integer points, exponential sums and the Riemann zeta function, Number theory for
the millennium, II (Urbana, IL, 2000) pp.275–290, A K Peters, Natick, MA, 2002, MR1956254 (http
s://mathscinet.ams.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=1956254).
13. Iwaniec & Kowalski: Analytic Number Theory, AMS Colloquium Pub. Vol. 53, 2004

References
Apostol, Tom M. (1976), Introduction to analytic number theory, Undergraduate Texts in
Mathematics, New York-Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag, ISBN 978-0-387-90163-3, MR 0434929 (http
s://www.ams.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=0434929), Zbl 0335.10001 (https://zbmath.org/?format=co
mplete&q=an:0335.10001)
Davenport, Harold (2000), Multiplicative number theory, Graduate Texts in Mathematics, 74 (3rd
revised ed.), New York: Springer-Verlag, ISBN 978-0-387-95097-6, MR 1790423 (https://www.ams.
org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=1790423)
Tenenbaum, Gérald (1995), Introduction to Analytic and Probabilistic Number Theory, Cambridge
studies in advanced mathematics, 46, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-41261-7

Further reading
Ayoub, Introduction to the Analytic Theory of Numbers
H. L. Montgomery and R. C. Vaughan, Multiplicative Number Theory I : Classical Theory
H. Iwaniec and E. Kowalski, Analytic Number Theory.
D. J. Newman, Analytic number theory, Springer, 1998

On specialized aspects the following books have become especially well-known:

Titchmarsh, Edward Charles (1986), The Theory of the Riemann Zeta Function (2nd ed.), Oxford
University Press
H. Halberstam and H. E. Richert, Sieve Methods
R. C. Vaughan, The Hardy–Littlewood method, 2nd. edn.

Certain topics have not yet reached book form in any depth. Some examples are (i) Montgomery's pair correlation
conjecture and the work that initiated from it, (ii) the new results of Goldston, Pintz and Yilidrim on small gaps
between primes, and (iii) the Green–Tao theorem showing that arbitrarily long arithmetic progressions of primes
exist.

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