Generalized Ramanujan Primes

In 1845, Bertrand conjectured that for all integers $x\ge2$, there exists at least one prime in $(x/2, x]$. This was proved by Chebyshev in 1860, and then generalized by Ramanujan in 1919. He showed that for any $n\ge1$, there is a (smallest) prime $R_n$ such that $\pi(x)- \pi(x/2) \ge n$ for all $x \ge R_n$. In 2009 Sondow called $R_n$ the $n$th Ramanujan prime and proved the asymptotic behavior $R_n \sim p_{2n}$ (where $p_m$ is the $m$th prime). In the present paper, we generalize the interval of interest by introducing a parameter $c \in (0,1)$ and defining the $n$th $c$-Ramanujan prime as the smallest integer $R_{c,n}$ such that for all $x\ge R_{c,n}$, there are at least $n$ primes in $(cx,x]$. Using consequences of strengthened versions of the Prime Number Theorem, we prove that $R_{c,n}$ exists for all $n$ and all $c$, that $R_{c,n} \sim p_{\frac{n}{1-c}}$ as $n\to\infty$, and that the fraction of primes which are $c$-Ramanujan converges to $1-c$. We then study finer questions related to their distribution among the primes, and see that the $c$-Ramanujan primes display striking behavior, deviating significantly from a probabilistic model based on biased coin flipping; this was first observed by Sondow, Nicholson, and Noe in the case $c = 1/2$. This model is related to the Cramer model, which correctly predicts many properties of primes on large scales, but has been shown to fail in some instances on smaller scales.Comment: 13 pages, 2 tables, to appear in the CANT 2011 Conference Proceedings. This is version 2.0. Changes: fixed typos, added references to OEIS sequences, and cited Shevelev's preprin

An open question: Are topological arguments helpful in setting initial conditions for transport problems in condensed matter physics?

The tunneling Hamiltonian is a proven method to treat particle tunneling between different states represented as wavefunctions in many-body physics. Our problem is how to apply a wave functional formulation of tunneling Hamiltonians to a driven sine-Gordon system. We apply a generalization of the tunneling Hamiltonian to charge density wave (CDW) transport problems in which we consider tunneling between states that are wavefunctionals of a scalar quantum field. We present derived I-E curves that match Zenier curves used to fit data experimentally with wavefunctionals congruent with the false vacuum hypothesis. THe open question is whether the coefficients picked in both the wavefunctionals and the magnitude of the coefficents of the driven sine Gordon physical system should be picked by topological charge arguements that in principle appear to assign values that have a tie in with the false vacuum hypothesis first presented by Sidney ColemanComment: 17 pages, 4 figures (1a to 2b) on two pages. Specific emphasis on if or not topological arguements a la Trodden, Su et al add to formulation of condensed matter transport problem