Chains of large gaps between primes

Abstract

Let $p_n$ denote the $n$-th prime, and for any $k \geq 1$ and sufficiently large $X$, define the quantity $$ G_k(X) := \max_{p_{n+k} \leq X} \min( p_{n+1}-p_n, \dots, p_{n+k}-p_{n+k-1} ),$$ which measures the occurrence of chains of $k$ consecutive large gaps of primes. Recently, with Green and Konyagin, the authors showed that \[ G_1(X) \gg \frac{\log X \log \log X\log\log\log\log X}{\log \log \log X}\] for sufficiently large $X$. In this note, we combine the arguments in that paper with the Maier matrix method to show that \[ G_k(X) \gg \frac{1}{k^2} \frac{\log X \log \log X\log\log\log\log X}{\log \log \log X}\] for any fixed $k$ and sufficiently large $X$. The implied constant is effective and independent of $k$.

Theorems & Definitions (16)

• Theorem 1
• Lemma 1.1: Chebyshev inequality
• Lemma 2.1: Landau-Page theorem
• Corollary 1
• Lemma 2.2: Gallagher's prime number theorem
• Theorem 2: Sieving an interval
• Lemma 3.1
• Theorem 3: Sieving primes
• Theorem 4
• Theorem 5: Random construction