3.1. Prime Vectors and Matrices
Definition 1.
The column vector is called an n - dimensional extended prime vector of size n if for all
We will now give the definition of a circulant matrix, defined using a column vector . The matrix is called circulant if , for some (or in general case). The circulant matrix is fully specified by its first column .
We just interpret the subscript periodically, i.e. we let , , and so on. Therefore, element of matrix A is calculated as follows: . In the case of , the circulant matrix
formed by the numbers ,,,.
In the following definition, we assume the application of the rule of modular arithmetic for negative numbers. Therefore, the elements of the matrix are well defined even if the row index (i) of the matrix element is smaller than the column index (j).
Definition 2.
Let be n - dimensional extended prime vector. The matrix is called an
prime matrix
, if
for all
.
Clearly, the prime matrix is a special circulant matrix with entries from the set
. Notice, the circulant matrices can also be defined by a row vector. The circulant matrix
B below is defined by a row vector
. The matrix is the transpose of a circulant matrix defined using a column vector.
In this case, we can express the elements of the matrix as
for all
.
Due to the matrix transposition, the difference between the two equations (
1), (
2) the row and column indices on the right side of the equations were replaced. In our work, we use the column vector definition (
1) of circulant matrices.
Example 1.
The matrix is a prime matrix, and
is an extended prime vector of size . For the sake of simplicity, we will also refer to prime matrix as A, if this does not cause misunderstanding.
Let be an prime matrix. The row of matrix will be denoted and the column for all . The vector is called the prime vector of size n. The row vector of matrix is called the reverse prime vector of size n.
Definition 3.
The matrix =( is called a
control matrix
of order n.
The entry
is a (dot) product of row and column of prime matrix , for all . The entry is called the
main element
of .
The set of all control matrices of all orders
is denoted by
. It is also important to note that the control matrix
as a product of circulant matrices
is also circulant, see [
13].
Lemma 1.
LetThe value
is the number of all prime pairs such that .
Proof. Suppose that is an arbitrary pair of primes and .
Let , and is the extended prime vector, and is the reverse prime vector.
Clearly , therefore . If or then or thus . □
We will examine when the equation holds.
Theorem 1.
An arbitrary natural number n can not be written as a sum of two primes if and only if
.
Proof. If then there is no pair of primes for which . If n can not be written as a sum of two primes then for all , , and therefore . □
Theorem 2.
If thenif and only if .
Proof. Suppose that
. Therefore,
It follows that
. We know that
, thus,
)
Equation
5 implies
4.) □
Example 2.
The matrix is a control matrix and . Therefore, based on Theorem 1 and 2, , that is, we can write the number 6 as the sum of at least two prime numbers.
The matrix is a control matrix of the type and . Based on Theorem 1 and 2, , that is, we can not write the number 11 as the sum of two prime numbers.
It is also important to note that the control matrix as a product of circulant matrices is also circulant, see [13].
A matrix generator program makes it possible to calculate the Prime matrix and Control matrix of other sizes, for any
n. The program can be run here [
12]. Note, the Internet access is required to run.