Faculty

Science

Supervisor Name

Ajneet Dhillon

Keywords

math, pure math, number theory, complex analysis, prime numbers

Description

First proved by German mathematician Dirichlet in 1837, this important theorem states that for coprime integers a, m, there are an infinite number of primes p such that p = a (mod m). This is one of many extensions of Euclid’s theorem that there are infinitely many prime numbers. In this paper, we will formulate a rather elegant proof of Dirichlet’s theorem using ideas from complex analysis and group theory.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my supervisor Prof. Ajneet Dhillon for guiding me towards this topic for my summer research project. I thoroughly enjoyed the readings recommended and was able to deepen my understanding of pure math thanks to his time and effort. I also extend my thanks to Prof. Chris Kapulkin, who inspired me to pursue research opportunities and introduced me to the USRI program in 2021.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License

Document Type

Paper

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Proving Dirichlet's Theorem on Arithmetic Progressions

First proved by German mathematician Dirichlet in 1837, this important theorem states that for coprime integers a, m, there are an infinite number of primes p such that p = a (mod m). This is one of many extensions of Euclid’s theorem that there are infinitely many prime numbers. In this paper, we will formulate a rather elegant proof of Dirichlet’s theorem using ideas from complex analysis and group theory.

 

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