The number of primes p ≤ N lying in the arithmetic progression a (mod q),
i.e. π(N; q, a) = #{ p ≤ N : p prime, p ≡ a (mod q) }.
Instances For
Discrepancy of the distribution of primes modulo q at scale N:
Δ_q(N) = sup_{(a, q) = 1} |π(N; q, a) − π(N) / φ(q)|. It measures how far the
counting function on each invertible residue class deviates from the expected value
π(N)/φ(q).
Instances For
The Bombieri–Vinogradov theorem (Rényi, Bombieri–Vinogradov): for every ε > 0 and
A > 0, there is a constant C > 0 such that for all N ≥ 2,
∑_{q ≤ N^{1/2 − ε}} Δ_q(N) ≤ C · N · (log N)^{−A}.
On average over moduli q up to roughly √N, the primes in arithmetic progressions
are as equidistributed as predicted by the generalized Riemann hypothesis.