Cunningham chain counting heuristic

About 5 years old · traced to

A Cunningham chain of length kk is a prime sequence of either first-kind form {p,2p+1,4p+3,…,2k−1p+2k−1−1}\{p,2p+1,4p+3,\ldots,2^{k-1}p+2^{k-1}-1\} or second-kind form {p,2p−1,4p−3,…,2k−1p−2k−1+1}\{p,2p-1,4p-3,\ldots,2^{k-1}p-2^{k-1}+1\}. Let

Bk=2k−1∏p>2pk−pk−1min⁡(k,ord⁡p(2))(p−1)k.B_k=2^{k-1}\prod_{p>2}\frac{p^k-p^{k-1}\min(k,\operatorname{ord}_p(2))}{(p-1)^k}.

Cunningham chain conjecture. The number of Cunningham chains of length kk beginning with a prime p≤Np\leq N is approximately

Bk∫2Ndxlog⁡xlog⁡(2x)⋯log⁡(2k−1x)∼BkN(log⁡N)k.B_k\int_2^N\frac{dx}{\log x\log(2x)\cdots\log(2^{k-1}x)}\sim\frac{B_kN}{(\log N)^k}.

This is a heuristic prediction for both kinds of Cunningham chains and remains open in general.

References

Primary source

Chris K. Caldwell, “An Amazing Prime Heuristic”, arXiv:2103.04483 (2021).

Progress summary

Never refreshed

Nothing recorded yet. Refresh searches the literature and the public web for attempts on this problem, and writes the first summary here.

Solutions 0

No solutions have been posted yet.