Bouniakowsky's conjecture on prime values of irreducible polynomials

Let f(n)f(n) be a polynomial with integer coefficients. Assume that its leading coefficient is positive, that ff is irreducible over the integers, and that

gcd(f(1),f(2),f(3),)=1.\gcd(f(1),f(2),f(3),\ldots)=1.

Bouniakowsky's conjecture. Then f(n)f(n) is prime for infinitely many positive integer values of nn. This is the motivating conjecture for studying eventually prime-free sequences, since reducible or fixed-divisor obstructions can prevent a polynomial sequence from taking prime values infinitely often.

Sources & referencesView supporting material

Primary source

Dan Ismailescu and Yunkyu James Lee, “Polynomially growing integer sequences all whose terms are composite”, arXiv:2501.04851 (2025).

Additional references

5 papers in this index state this conjecture (1998–2025). The statement above is taken from the most recent of them; the others are arXiv:1809.05569, arXiv:1807.02195, arXiv:1310.5198, arXiv:math/9808021.

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