The prime-component counting conjecture for Apollonian packings

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Let Pfull⁡{\mathcal{P}^{\operatorname{full}}} be a primitive integral Apollonian packing, and let CPfull⁡(X)C_{{\mathcal{P}^{\operatorname{full}}}}(X) be the number of circles of curvature at most XX. Let NPfull⁡root⁡(X)N^{\operatorname{root}}_{{\mathcal{P}^{\operatorname{full}}}}(X) count prime component roots (a,b,c,p)(a,b,c,p) with a,b,c≤p≤Xa,b,c\leq p\leq X and pp prime. By the paper's uniqueness result, this also counts prime components. Define

c=∏p prime\p≡1(4)p2p2−1∏p prime\p≡3(4)p2p2+1=0.9159…,c=\prod_{\substack{p\ \text{prime}\p\equiv1\,(4)}}\frac{p^2}{p^2-1}\prod_{\substack{p\ \text{prime}\p\equiv3\,(4)}}\frac{p^2}{p^2+1}=0.9159\ldots,

and let c”c” be a constant between 00 and 22. Prime-component counting conjecture.

NPfull⁡root⁡(X)∼cCPfull⁡(X)log⁡X−c”CPfull⁡(X)(log⁡X)2∼cCPfull⁡(X)log⁡X.N^{\operatorname{root}}_{{\mathcal{P}^{\operatorname{full}}}}(X)\sim c\frac{C_{{\mathcal{P}^{\operatorname{full}}}}(X)}{\log X}-c”\frac{C_{{\mathcal{P}^{\operatorname{full}}}}(X)}{(\log X)^2}\sim c\frac{C_{{\mathcal{P}^{\operatorname{full}}}}(X)}{\log X}.

The paper proves an upper bound of the order CPfull⁡(X)/log⁡XC_{{\mathcal{P}^{\operatorname{full}}}}(X)/\log X and gives a heuristic justification for this asymptotic.

References

Primary source

Holley Friedlander, Elena Fuchs, Piper Harris, Catherine Hsu, James Rickards, Katherine Sanden, Damaris Schindler and Katherine E. Stange, “Prime and thickened prime components in Apollonian circle packings”, arXiv:2410.00177 (2025).

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