Department of Mathematics,
University of California San Diego
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Math 209 - Number Theory Seminar
James Maynard
Oxford University
Polynomials representing primes
Abstract:
It is a famous conjecture that any one variable polynomial satisfying some simple conditions should take infinitely many prime values. Unfortunately, this isn't known in any case except for linear polynomials - the sparsity of values of higher degree polynomials causes substantial difficulties. If we look at polynomials in multiple variables, then there are a few polynomials known to represent infinitely many primes whilst still taking on `few' values; Friedlander-Iwaniec showed $X^2+Y^4$ is prime infinitely often, and Heath-Brown showed the same for $X^3+2Y^3$. We will demonstrate a family of multivariate sparse polynomials all of which take infinitely many prime values.
Host: Kiran Kedlaya
February 16, 2017
1:00 PM
AP&M 7321
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