On the mean square gap between primes

Abstract

We prove that the average size of the squares of differences between consecutive primes less than $x$ is $O(x^{0.23+\epsilon })$ for any fixed $\epsilon >0$. This improves on a result of Peck, who gave bound $O(x^{0.25+\epsilon })$ in the place of $O(x^{0.23+\epsilon })$. Key ingredients are Harman's sieve, Heath-Brown's mean value theorem for sparse Dirichlet polynomials and Heath-Brown's $R^{\ast }$ bound.

arXiv comment71 pages. Revised version, accepted for publication in Mathematische Zeitschrift