Pair Correlation of Zeros of the Riemann Zeta Function I: Proportions of Simple Zeros and Critical Zeros

Abstract

Assuming the Riemann Hypothesis (RH), Montgomery proved a theorem in 1973 concerning the pair correlation of zeros of the Riemann zeta-function and applied this to prove that at least 2/3 of the zeros are simple. In this paper, we investigate the versatility of the pair correlation method and show, for the first time, that it can be used to prove results on the horizontal distribution of zeros of the Riemann zeta-function. In earlier work we showed how to remove RH from Montgomery's theorem and, in turn, obtain results on simple zeros assuming conditions on the zeros that are weaker than RH. Here we assume a more general condition, namely that all the zeros $\rho =\beta +i\gamma$ with $T<\gamma \le 2T$ are in a narrow vertical box centered on the critical line with width $b/\log T$. We prove that under this assumption with $b=0.3185$ that at least $2/3$ of zeros are simple and on the critical line.

This updated version was submitted for publication on June 10, 2026 and is currently under review. In addition to changes to the exposition, we show that under our box assumption with $b=0.3185$, that at least $2/3$ of zeros are simple and on the critical line