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).

Branches of analytic number

theory Riemann zeta function ζ(s) in the complex plane.
The color of a point s encodes the value of ζ(s):
Analytic number theory can be split up into two major colors close to black denote values close to zero,
parts, divided more by the type of problems they while hue encodes the value's argument.
attempt to solve than fundamental differences in
technique.[3]

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.[4]
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.[5]

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" ('in the year 1792 or 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 " ('prime numbers under
'). 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,[6] 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.[6][7] In 1841 he generalized his arithmetic progressions theorem from integers to the ring of
Gaussian integers .[8]

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.[9] 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.[10] 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 number theory. In a single short paper (the only one he "…es ist sehr
wahrscheinlich, dass alle
published on the subject of number theory), he investigated the
Riemann zeta function and established its importance for Wurzeln reell sind. Hiervon
wäre allerdings ein strenger
Beweis zu wünschen; ich
habe indess die Aufsuchung
desselben nach einigen
flüchtigen vergeblichen
understanding the distribution of prime numbers. He made a series of Versuchen vorläufig bei
conjectures about properties of the zeta function, one of which is the Seite gelassen, da er für den
well-known Riemann hypothesis. nächsten Zweck meiner
Untersuchung entbehrlich
schien."
Hadamard and de la Vallée-Poussin
Extending the ideas of Riemann, two proofs of the prime number "…it is very probable that
theorem were obtained independently by Jacques Hadamard and all roots are real. Of course
Charles Jean de la Vallée-Poussin and appeared in the same year one would wish for a
(1896). Both proofs used methods from complex analysis, establishing rigorous proof here; I have
as a main step of the proof that the Riemann zeta function ζ(s) is non- for the time being, after
zero for all complex values of the variable s that have the form some fleeting vain attempts,
s = 1 + it with t > 0.[12] provisionally put aside the
search for this, as it appears
dispensable for the next
Modern times
objective of my
The biggest technical change after 1950 has been the development of investigation."
sieve methods,[13] particularly in multiplicative problems. These are
combinatorial in nature, and quite varied. The extremal branch of Riemann's statement of the
combinatorial theory has in return been greatly influenced by the value Riemann hypothesis, from his
placed in analytic number theory on quantitative upper and lower 1859 paper.[11] (He was
discussing a version of the zeta
bounds. Another recent development is probabilistic number function, modified so that its
theory,[14] which uses methods from probability theory to estimate the roots are real rather than on the
distribution of number theoretic functions, such as how many prime critical line. See, Riemann Xi
divisors a number has. Function.)

Specifically, the breakthroughs by Yitang Zhang, James Maynard,

Terence Tao and Ben Green have all used the Goldston–Pintz–Yıldırım method, which they originally
used to prove that[15][16][17][18][19][20]

Developments within analytic number theory are often refinements of earlier techniques, which reduce
the error terms and widen their applicability. For example, the circle method of Hardy and Littlewood
was conceived as 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,

where is the totient function.

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[21] 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

where the product is taken over all prime numbers p.

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.[20]

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
Automorphic L-function
Automorphic form
Langlands program
Maier's matrix method

Notes
1. Apostol 1976, p. 7.
2. Davenport 2000, p. 1.
3. Hildebrand, A.J. (2005). "Introduction to Analytic Number Theory Math 531 Lecture Notes,
Fall 2005" (https://faculty.math.illinois.edu/~hildebr/ant/main.pdf#page=21) (PDF).
4. Davenport, Harold (2013). Multiplicative number theory (https://books.google.com/books?id
=SFztBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA1). Graduate Texts in Mathematics. Vol. 74. Springer-Verlag. p. 1.
doi:10.1007/978-1-4757-5927-3 (https://doi.org/10.1007%2F978-1-4757-5927-3). ISBN 978-
1-4757-5929-7.
5. Nathason, Melvyn B. (2013). Additive Number Theory, The Classical Bases (https://books.g
oogle.com/books?id=nbjVBwAAQBAJ). Springer-Verlag. p. vii–viii. ISBN 978-0-387-94656-
6.
6. 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.
7. Kanemitsu, Shigeru; Chaohua Jia (2002). Number theoretic methods: future trends.
Springer. pp. 271–274. ISBN 978-1-4020-1080-4.
8. Elstrodt, Jürgen (2007). "The Life and Work of Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet (1805–1859)" (http
s://web.archive.org/web/20080307174514/http://www.uni-math.gwdg.de/tschinkel/gauss-diri
chlet/elstrodt-new.pdf) (PDF). Clay Mathematics Proceedings. Archived from the original (htt
p://www.uni-math.gwdg.de/tschinkel/gauss-dirichlet/elstrodt-new.pdf) (PDF) on 2008-03-07.
Retrieved 2007-12-25.
 9. 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/10.2
307%2F2322510). JSTOR 2322510 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/2322510).
10. 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%2F2
320934). JSTOR 2320934 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/2320934).
11. Riemann, Bernhard (1859), "Ueber die Anzahl der Primzahlen unter einer gegebenen
Grösse" (http://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_Hypot
hesis/1859_manuscript/) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20130523061451/http://ww
w.claymath.org/millennium/Riemann_Hypothesis/1859_manuscript/) May 23, 2013, at the
Wayback Machine (with English translation). Reprinted in (Borwein et al. 2008) and
(Edwards 1974)
12. Ingham, A.E. (1990). The Distribution of Prime Numbers. Cambridge University Press.
pp. 2–5. ISBN 0-521-39789-8.
13. Tenenbaum 1995, p. 56.
14. Tenenbaum 1995, p. 267.
15. Green, Ben (2014-02-22). "Bounded gaps between primes". arXiv:1402.4849 (https://arxiv.o
rg/abs/1402.4849) [math.NT (https://arxiv.org/archive/math.NT)].
16. Maynard, James (2019). "Primes with restricted digits". Inventiones Mathematicae. 217 (1):
127–218. arXiv:1604.01041 (https://arxiv.org/abs/1604.01041).
Bibcode:2019InMat.217..127M (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2019InMat.217..127M).
doi:10.1007/s00222-019-00865-6 (https://doi.org/10.1007%2Fs00222-019-00865-6).
17. Green, Ben; Tao, Terence (2008). "The primes contain arbitrarily long arithmetic
progressions". Annals of Mathematics. 2nd Series. 167 (2): 481–547. arXiv:math/0404188
(https://arxiv.org/abs/math/0404188). doi:10.4007/annals.2008.167.481 (https://doi.org/10.4
007%2Fannals.2008.167.481).
18. "Bounded gaps between primes - Polymath Wiki" (https://web.archive.org/web/2020120804
5925/https://asone.ai/polymath/index.php?title=Bounded_gaps_between_primes). asone.ai.
Archived from the original (https://asone.ai/polymath/index.php?title=Bounded_gaps_betwe
en_primes) on 2020-12-08. Retrieved 2022-07-14.
19. Terence Tao - Large and Small Gaps in the Primes [2015] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=LikuKTZzgoU), 15 December 2017, retrieved 2022-07-14
20. Iwaniec & Kowalski: Analytic Number Theory, AMS Colloquium Pub. Vol. 53, 2004
21. 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 (https://mathscinet.ams.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=1956254).

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 (https://mathscinet.ams.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=0434929), Zbl 0335.10001
(https://zbmath.org/?format=complete&q=an:0335.10001)
Borwein, Peter; Choi, Stephen; Rooney, Brendan; Weirathmueller, Andrea, eds. (2008), The
Riemann Hypothesis: A Resource for the Afficionado and Virtuoso Alike, CMS Books in
Mathematics, New York: Springer, doi:10.1007/978-0-387-72126-2 (https://doi.org/10.1007%
2F978-0-387-72126-2), ISBN 978-0-387-72125-5
 Davenport, Harold (2000), Multiplicative number theory, Graduate Texts in Mathematics,
vol. 74 (3rd revised ed.), New York: Springer-Verlag, ISBN 978-0-387-95097-6, MR 1790423
(https://mathscinet.ams.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=1790423)
Edwards, H. M. (1974), Riemann's Zeta Function, New York: Dover Publications, ISBN 978-
0-486-41740-0, MR 0466039 (https://mathscinet.ams.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=0466039)
Tenenbaum, Gérald (1995), Introduction to Analytic and Probabilistic Number Theory,
Cambridge studies in advanced mathematics, vol. 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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