Bunyakovsky conjecture
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Statement
The conjecture (not yet proved or disproved) states the following: suppose is irreducible, i.e.,
is an irreducible polynomial of degree two or higher with integer coefficients. Consider the set:
Then, one of these two cases must hold:
- The greatest common divisor of all the elements of
is greater than 1, i.e., all elements of
have a nontrivial common factor.
-
contains infinitely many prime numbers.
Note that the first case occurs if and only if the polynomial can be written as (a positive integer greater than 1) times (an integer-valued polynomial).
Related facts and conjectures
Related known facts
- Dirichlet's theorem on primes in arithmetic progressions is the analogous statement for polynomials of degree one.
- Cohn's irreducibility criterion is a converse of sorts, which says that a polynomial with nonnegative coefficients takes a prime value at any natural number greater than all coefficients, then the polynomial is irreducible.
Related conjectures
- Bateman-Horn conjecture is a stronger conjecture that also makes assertions about the frequency of primes in the set of values taken by a polynomial.