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2 Journal of Integer Sequences, Vol. 25 (2022),

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47 6
Article 22.7.3
23 11

On Landau’s Inequality for the

Prime Counting Function

Horst Alzer
Morsbacher Straße 10
51545 Waldbröl
Germany
[email protected]

Man Kam Kwong

Department of Applied Mathematics
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Hunghom
Hong Kong
[email protected]

Abstract
We prove that the inequality 2π(n) − π(2n) ≥ 2ω(n) is valid for all n ≥ 71. Here,
π(n) denotes the prime counting function and ω(n) denotes the number of distinct
prime factors of n. Our inequality refines a recently published result by Zhang.

1 Introduction and statement of the main result

In 1909, Landau [4] conjectured that the inequality
π(2n) ≤ 2π(n) (1)
is valid for all integers n ≥ 2. Here, π(n) denotes the number of primes which are less than or
equal to n. The first proof of (1) was given by Rosser and Schoenfeld [11] in 1966. Moreover,
they showed that the sign of equality holds in (1) if and only if n ∈ {2, 4, 10}.

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 Landau’s inequality attracted the attention of several mathematicians, who presented
various extensions and counterparts of (1). For more information on this subject we refer to
Ehrhart [3], Mitrinović, Sándor, Crstici [6, Chapter VII], Panaitopol [7, 8, 9], and Vlamos
[12].
Our work was inspired by an interesting paper published by Zhang [13] in 2020. He
obtained a positive lower bound for the difference 2π(n) − π(2n). More precisely, he proved
that for n ≥ 59,
2π(n) − π(2n) > ω(2n), (2)
where ω(n) denotes the number of distinct prime factors of n. Here, we offer the following
improvement of (2) for n ≥ 71.

Theorem 1. Let n ≥ 71 be an integer. Then

2π(n) − π(2n) ≥ 2ω(n), (3)

with equality if and only if n ∈ {78, 100, 102, 126}.

We note that n = 70 is the largest integer such that (3) is not true. In the next section,
we present a proof of Theorem 1 and we show that (3) refines (2).

2 Proof of Theorem 1
Proof. Let
F (n) = 2π(n) − π(2n) − 2ω(n). (4)
We consider two cases.

Case 1. 71 ≤ n ≤ 30091.
We used MAPLE 16 and the following computer program to verify (3).

with(NumberTheory):
w := n -> nops(PrimeFactors(n)):
F := n -> 2*pi(n)-pi(2*n)-2*w(n):
for k from 71 to 30091 do
if F(n) <= 0 then print(k,F(n)) end if
end do;

For all n we obtain that F (n) is positive with exactly four exceptions:

F (78) = F (100) = F (102) = F (126) = 0.

Case 2. n ≥ 30092.

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 We apply the estimates
n
≤ π(n) (n ≥ 5393), (5)
log(n) − 1
n
π(n) ≤ (n ≥ 60184), (6)
log(n) − 1.1
log(n)
ω(n) ≤ c (c = 1.3841; n ≥ 3). (7)
log(log(n))
The inequalities (5) and (6) are due to Dusart [2], whereas (7) was proved by Robin [10].
Better bounds for π(n) were given by Berkane and Dusart [1].
Let F (n) be the function defined in (4). Using (5), (6) and (7) gives for n ≥ 30092,

2n 2n 2c log(n)
F (n) ≥ − − = G(n), say. (8)
log(n) − 1 log(2n) − 1.1 log(log(n))

We set n = ex with x ≥ log(30092) ≈ 10.31 and a = 1.1 − log(2) ≈ 0.40. Then,

1 1 ex x
G(n) = G(ex ) = (1 − a) −c .
2 2 (x − 1)(x − a) log(x)

Using
x−y x+y
< (0 < y < x),
log(x) − log(y) 2
(see Mitrinović [5, p. 273]) with y = 1 gives
1 c x−1
(x − 1)(x − a)G(ex ) = ex − x(x − a)
2(1 − a) 1−a log(x)
c x+1
> ex − x(x − a)
1−a 2
5
Xx k
6  2
>1+ − x(x + 1) x −
k=1
k! 5 5
x
=1+ P (x)
600
with
P (x) = 5x4 + 25x3 − 620x2 − 132x + 888.
Since P is positive on [10, ∞), we obtain G(ex ) > 0 for x ≥ log(30092). From (8) we conclude
that F (n) > 0 for n ≥ 30092.
Finally, we show that (3) improves Zhang’s inequality (2).

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Lemma 2. For all integers n ≥ 2, we have

2ω(n) ≥ ω(2n). (9)

Equality holds in (9) if and only if n = pk , where p is an odd prime number and k is a
positive integer.

Proof. Let
r
Y
n= p j kj ,
j=1

where p1 , · · · , pr are prime numbers with p1 < · · · < pr and k1 , · · · , kr are positive integers.
If p1 = 2, then
2ω(n) − ω(2n) = 2r − r = r > 0,
and if p1 > 2, then
2ω(n) − ω(2n) = 2r − (r + 1) = r − 1 ≥ 0,
with equality if and only if n = p1 k1 .
Let n ≥ 71. If n = pk , where p ≥ 3 is a prime number and k ≥ 1 is an integer, then
n∈
/ {78, 100, 102, 126}. From Theorem 1 and Lemma 2 we conclude that

2π(n) − π(2n) > 2ω(n) = ω(2n).

And, if n 6= pk , then
2π(n) − π(2n) ≥ 2ω(n) > ω(2n).

References
[1] D. Berkane and P. Dusart, On a constant relating to the prime counting function,
Mediterr. J. Math. 13 (2016), 929–938.

[2] P. Dusart, Estimates of some functions over primes without R.H., arxiv preprint
arXiv:1002.0442 [math.NT], 2010. Available at https://arxiv.org/abs/1002.0442.

[3] E. Ehrhart, On prime numbers, Fibonacci Quart. 26 (1988), 271–274.

[4] E. Landau, Handbuch der Lehre von der Verteilung der Primzahlen, Vol. 1, Teubner,
1909.

[5] D. S. Mitrinović, Analytic Inequalities, Springer, 1970.

[6] D. S. Mitrinović, J. Sándor, and B. Crstici, Handbook of Number Theory, Mathematics

and its Applications 351, Kluwer, 1996.

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 [7] L. Panaitopol, On the inequality pa pb > pab , Bull. Math. Soc. Sc. Math. Roumanie
(N.S.) 41 (1998), 135–139.

[8] L. Panaitopol, On a theorem of Edmund Landau, An. Univ. Bucureşti Mat. 49 (2000),
67–72.

[9] L. Panaitopol, Some generalizations for a theorem by Landau, Math. Inequal. Appl. 4
(2001), 327–330.

[10] G. Robin, Estimation de la fonction de Tchebychef θ sur le k-ième nombre premier et

grandes valeurs de la fonction ω(n) nombre de diviseurs premiers de n, Acta Arith. 42
(1983), 367–389.

[11] J. B. Rosser and L. Schoenfeld, Abstracts of scientific communications, Intern. Congr.

Math. Moscow, 1966, Section 3: Theory of Numbers.

[12] P. Vlamos, Properties of the function f (x) = x/π(x), Int. J. Math. Math. Sci. 28 (2001),
307–311.

[13] S. Zhang, An improved inequality of Rosser and Schoenfeld and its application, Integers
20 (2020), #A103.

2020 Mathematics Subject Classification: Primary 11A41.

Keywords: Landau’s inequality, prime counting function, estimate, prime omega function.

(Concerned with sequences A000720, A001221, and A060208.)

Received June 28 2022; revised versions received September 8 2022; September 10 2022.
Published in Journal of Integer Sequences, September 11 2022.

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