OFFSET
1,1
COMMENTS
Prime septuplets (p, p+2, p+8, p+12, p+14, p+18, p+20) are one of the two types of densest permissible constellations of 7 primes (A022009 and A022010). Average gaps between prime k-tuples can be deduced from the Hardy-Littlewood k-tuple conjecture and are O(log^k(p)), with k=7 for septuplets. If a gap is larger than any preceding gap, we call it a maximal gap, or a record gap. Maximal gaps may be significantly larger than average gaps; this sequence suggests that maximal gaps are O(log^8(p)).
LINKS
Alexei Kourbatov, Table of n, a(n) for n = 1..52
G. H. Hardy and J. E. Littlewood, Some problems of 'Partitio numerorum'; III: On the expression of a number as a sum of primes, Acta Math., Vol. 44, No. 1 (1923), pp. 1-70.
Alexei Kourbatov, Maximal gaps between prime k-tuples.
Alexei Kourbatov, Maximal gaps between prime k-tuples: a statistical approach, arXiv preprint arXiv:1301.2242 [math.NT], 2013 and J. Int. Seq. 16 (2013) #13.5.2.
Alexei Kourbatov, Tables of record gaps between prime constellations, arXiv preprint arXiv:1309.4053 [math.NT], 2013.
Alexei Kourbatov, The distribution of maximal prime gaps in Cramer's probabilistic model of primes, arXiv preprint arXiv:1401.6959 [math.NT], 2014.
Norman Luhn, Record Gaps Between Prime Septuplets, up to 10^17.
Eric Weisstein's World of Mathematics, k-Tuple Conjecture.
FORMULA
Gaps between prime septuplets (p, p+2, p+8, p+12, p+14, p+18, p+20) are smaller than 0.02*(log p)^8, where p is the prime at the end of the gap. There is no rigorous proof of this formula. The O(log^8(p)) growth rate is suggested by numerical data and heuristics based on probability considerations.
EXAMPLE
The gap of 83160 between septuplets starting at p=5639 and p=88799 is the very first gap, so a(1)=83160. The gap of 195930 between septuplets starting at p=88799 and p=284729 is a maximal gap - larger than any preceding gap; therefore a(2)=195930. The next gap of 341880 is again a maximal gap, so a(3)=341880. The next gap is smaller, so it does not contribute to the sequence.
CROSSREFS
KEYWORD
nonn,hard
AUTHOR
Alexei Kourbatov, Nov 28 2011
STATUS
approved