In
mathematics
Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...
, the explicit formulae for L-functions are relations between sums over the complex number zeroes of an
L-function and sums over prime powers, introduced by for the
Riemann zeta function
The Riemann zeta function or Euler–Riemann zeta function, denoted by the Greek letter (zeta), is a mathematical function of a complex variable defined as \zeta(s) = \sum_^\infty \frac = \frac + \frac + \frac + \cdots for \operatorname(s) > ...
. Such explicit formulae have been applied also to questions on bounding the
discriminant of an algebraic number field
In mathematics, the discriminant of an algebraic number field is a numerical invariant that, loosely speaking, measures the size of the (ring of integers of the) algebraic number field. More specifically, it is proportional to the squared volume ...
, and the
conductor of a number field.
Riemann's explicit formula
In his 1859 paper "
On the Number of Primes Less Than a Given Magnitude" Riemann sketched an explicit formula (it was not fully proven until 1895 by
von Mangoldt, see below) for the normalized prime-counting function which is related to the
prime-counting function
In mathematics, the prime-counting function is the function counting the number of prime numbers less than or equal to some real number ''x''. It is denoted by (''x'') (unrelated to the number ).
History
Of great interest in number theory is t ...
by
:
which takes the arithmetic mean of the limit from the left and the limit from the right at discontinuities. His formula was given in terms of the related function
:
in which a prime power counts as of a prime. The normalized prime-counting function can be recovered from this function by
:
where is the
Möbius function. Riemann's formula is then
:
involving a sum over the non-trivial zeros of the Riemann zeta function. The sum is not
absolutely convergent, but may be evaluated by taking the zeros in order of the absolute value of their imaginary part. The function occurring in the first term is the (unoffset)
logarithmic integral function
In mathematics, the logarithmic integral function or integral logarithm li(''x'') is a special function. It is relevant in problems of physics and has number theoretic significance. In particular, according to the prime number theorem, it is a ...
given by the
Cauchy principal value of the divergent integral
:
The terms involving the zeros of the zeta function need some care in their definition as has
branch points at 0 and 1, and are defined by
analytic continuation in the complex variable in the region and . The other terms also correspond to zeros: The dominant term comes from the pole at , considered as a zero of multiplicity −1, and the remaining small terms come from the trivial zeros. This formula says that the zeros of the Riemann zeta function control the oscillations of primes around their "expected" positions. (For graphs of the sums of the first few terms of this series see .)
The first rigorous proof of the aforementioned formula was given by von Mangoldt in 1895: it started with a proof of the following formula for the
Chebyshev's function
In mathematics, the Chebyshev function is either a scalarising function (Tchebycheff function) or one of two related functions. The first Chebyshev function or is given by
:\vartheta(x)=\sum_ \ln p
where \ln denotes the natural logarithm, w ...
:
where the LHS is an inverse Mellin transform with
:
and the RHS is obtained from the
residue theorem, and then converting it into the formula that Riemann himself actually sketched.
This series is also conditionally convergent and the sum over zeroes should again be taken in increasing order of imaginary part:
[Ingham (1990) p.77]
:
where
The error involved in truncating the sum to is always smaller than in absolute value, and when divided by the
natural logarithm
The natural logarithm of a number is its logarithm to the base of the mathematical constant , which is an irrational and transcendental number approximately equal to . The natural logarithm of is generally written as , , or sometimes, if ...
of , has absolute value smaller than divided by the distance from to the nearest prime power.
Confused about the explicit formula for ψ0(x)
/ref>
Weil's explicit formula
There are several slightly different ways to state the explicit formula. André Weil
André Weil (; ; 6 May 1906 – 6 August 1998) was a French mathematician, known for his foundational work in number theory and algebraic geometry. He was a founding member and the ''de facto'' early leader of the mathematical Bourbaki group. Th ...
's form of the explicit formula states
:
where
*''ρ'' runs over the non-trivial zeros of the zeta function
*''p'' runs over positive primes
*''m'' runs over positive integers
*''F'' is a smooth function all of whose derivatives are rapidly decreasing
* is a Fourier transform of ''F'':
*
*, where is the digamma function .
Roughly speaking, the explicit formula says the Fourier transform of the zeros of the zeta function is the set of prime powers plus some elementary factors. Once this is said, the formula comes from the fact that the Fourier transform is a unitary operator, so that a scalar product in time domain is equal to the scalar product of the Fourier transforms in the frequency domain.
The terms in the formula arise in the following way.
*The terms on the right hand side come from the logarithmic derivative of with the terms corresponding to the prime ''p'' coming from the Euler factor of ''p'', and the term at the end involving Ψ coming from the gamma factor (the Euler factor at infinity).
*The left-hand side is a sum over all zeros of ''ζ'' * counted with multiplicities, so the poles at 0 and 1 are counted as zeros of order −1.
Weil's explicit formula can be understood like this. The target is to be able to write that:
:
where is the von Mangoldt function.
So that the Fourier transform of the non trivial zeros is equal to the primes power symmetrized plus a minor term. Of course, the sum involved are not convergent, but the trick is to use the unitary property of Fourier transform which is that it preserves scalar product:
:
where are the Fourier transforms of .
At a first look, it seems to be a formula for functions only, but in fact in many cases it also works when is a distribution. Hence, by setting where is the Dirac delta, and carefully choosing a function and its Fourier transform, we get the formula above.
Explicit formulae for other arithmetical functions
The Riemann-Weyl formula can be generalized to arithmetical functions other than the von Mangoldt function. For example for the Möbius function we have
:
Also for the Liouville function we have
:
For the Euler-Phi function the explicit formula reads
:
In all cases the sum is related to the imaginary part of the Riemann zeros and the function ''h'' is related to the test function ''g'' by a Fourier transform, .
For the divisor function of zeroth order .
Using a test function of the form for some positive ''a'' turns the Poisson summation formula into a formula involving the Mellin transform. Here ''y'' is a real parameter.
Generalizations
The Riemann zeta function can be replaced by a Dirichlet L-function of a Dirichlet character χ. The sum over prime powers then gets extra
factors of ''χ''(''p'' ''m''), and the terms Φ(1) and Φ(0) disappear because the L-series has no poles.
More generally, the Riemann zeta function and the L-series can be replaced by the Dedekind zeta function of an algebraic number field or a Hecke L-series. The sum over primes then gets replaced by a sum over prime ideals.
Applications
Riemann's original use of the explicit formula was to give an exact formula for the number of primes less than a given number. To do this, take ''F''(log(''y'')) to be ''y''1/2/log(''y'') for 0 ≤ ''y'' ≤ ''x'' and 0 elsewhere. Then the main term of the sum on the right is the number of primes less than ''x''. The main term on the left is ''Φ''(1); which turns out to be the dominant terms of the prime number theorem
In mathematics, the prime number theorem (PNT) describes the asymptotic distribution of the prime numbers among the positive integers. It formalizes the intuitive idea that primes become less common as they become larger by precisely quantifying ...
, and the main correction is the sum over non-trivial zeros of the zeta function. (There is a minor technical problem in using this case, in that the function ''F'' does not satisfy the smoothness condition.)
Hilbert–Pólya conjecture
According to the Hilbert–Pólya conjecture, the complex zeroes ''ρ'' should be the eigenvalues of some linear operator
In mathematics, and more specifically in linear algebra, a linear map (also called a linear mapping, linear transformation, vector space homomorphism, or in some contexts linear function) is a mapping V \to W between two vector spaces that pre ...
''T''. The sum over the zeros of the explicit formula is then (at least formally) given by a trace:
:
Development of the explicit formulae for a wide class of L-functions was given by , who first extended the idea to local zeta-functions, and formulated a version of a generalized Riemann hypothesis in this setting, as a positivity statement for a generalized function on a topological group. More recent work by Alain Connes has gone much further into the functional-analytic background, providing a trace formula the validity of which is equivalent to such a generalized Riemann hypothesis. A slightly different point of view was given by , who derived the explicit formula of Weil via harmonic analysis on adelic spaces.
See also
* Selberg trace formula
Footnotes
References
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
* Garcia J.J Mellin Convolution and its Extensions, Perron Formula and Explicit Formulae doi=10.20944/preprints201801.0020.v1
* https://encyclopediaofmath.org/wiki/M%C3%B6bius_function#:~:text=The%20M%C3%B6bius%20function%20is%20an,M%C3%B6bius%20in%201832
Further reading
*
* {{citation , last=Riesel , first=Hans , author-link=Hans Riesel , title=Prime numbers and computer methods for factorization , edition=2nd , series=Progress in Mathematics , volume=126 , location=Boston, MA , publisher=Birkhäuser , year=1994 , isbn=0-8176-3743-5 , zbl=0821.11001
Zeta and L-functions