Summary
We show that Kummer's conjectured asymptotic estimate for the size of the first factor of the class number of a cyclotomic field is untrue under the assumption of two well-known and widely believed conjectures of analytic number theory.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ankeny, N.C., Chowla, S.: The class number of the cyclotomic field. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA35, 529–532 (1949)
Bombieri, E., Friedlander, J.B., Iwaniec, H.: Primes in arithmetic progressions to large moduli. Acta Math.156, 203–251 (1986); II. Math. Ann.277, 361–393 (1987); III. J. Am. Math. Soc.2, 215–224 (1989)
Chen, J.: On the representation of a large even integer as the sum of a prime and the product of at most two primes. Sci. Sinica16, 157–176 (1973)
Davenport, H.: Multiplicative number theory. (2nd. Edn.) New York: Springer 1980
Elliott, P.D.T.A., Halberstam, H.: A conjecture in prime number theory. Symp. Math.4, 59–72 (1968–69)
Erdös, P., Nicolas, J.L.: On functions connected with prime divisors of an integer, Number Theory and Applications, NATO ASI series, Mollin, R.A. (ed.) pp. 381–391, 1989
Friedlander, J.B., Granville, A.: Limitations to the equi-distribution of primes. I Ann. Math.129, 363–382 (1989)
Fung, G., Granville, A., Williams, H.C.: Computations of the first factor of the class number of cyclotomic fields. (preprint)
Halberstam, H., Richert H.E.: Sieve methods. New York: Academic Press 1974
Hardy, G., Littlewood, J.E.: Some problems of ‘partitio numerorum’, III. On the expression of a number as a sum of primes. Acta Math.44, 1–70 (1923)
Hasse, H.: Über die Klassenzahl abelscher Zahlkörper, Berlin: Akademic-Verlag 1952
Hensley, D., Richards, I.: Primes in intervals. Acta Arithm.25, 375–391 (1974)
Kummer, E.E.: Mémoire sur la théorie des nombres complexes composés de racines de l'unité et des nombres entiers. J. Math. Pures Appl.16, 377–498 (1851); Collected Works, Vol. I., p. 459
Maier, H.: Small differences between prime numbers. Mich. Math J.35, 323–344 (1988)
Masley, J.M., Montgomery, H.L.: Cyclotomic Fields with unique factorization. J. Reine Angew. Math.286/287, 248–256 (1976)
Montgomery, H.L.: Topics in multiplicative number theory. (Lect. Notes Math., Vol. 227). New York: Springer 1971
Montgomery, H.L., Vaughan, R.C.: The large sieve, Mathematika20, 119–134 (1973)
Pajunen, S.: Computation of the growth of the first factor for prime cyclotomic fields. BIT16, 85–87 (1976)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Granville, A. On the size of the first factor of the class number of a cyclotomic field. Invent Math 100, 321–338 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01231189
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01231189