Zulip Chat Archive

Stream: PrimeNumberTheorem+

Topic: Decision to be made on (2 \pi i) factors


Alex Kontorovich (Feb 01 2024 at 15:33):

We're getting to the point where those 2πi2\pi i factors are going to start appearing everywhere, since we're actually trying to evaluate residues. Any objections to rolling them into the definition of VerticalIntegral, so they don't need to be explicated every time? Perhaps RectangleIntegral should also have a 1/(2πi)1/(2\pi i) in front, since we'll need to convert between the two regularly? Any suggestions, one way or another? (@Terence Tao)

Terence Tao (Feb 01 2024 at 16:01):

I don't think it will make too much difference, but if one were to put in the 2 pi i factor I would change the name slightly. One possibility is to make an abbrev such as VerticalIntegral' that is simply VerticalIntegral divided by 2 pi i, then people can use whichever form of the integral they wish.

In the Wiener-Ikehara section the 2 pi factor is moved to the exponent in order to be compatible with the Matlhlib Fourier transform, but I think this isn't too hard to deal with. Again one could address this by defining a variant e' of the character e that doesn't have the 2 pi factor (i.e., e(x)=eix e'(x) = e^{ix} and e(x)=e2πix e(x) =e^{2\pi i x}) if desired, but I don't think this is going to be the main difficulty in the formalization of this section in any event.

Alex Kontorovich (Feb 01 2024 at 16:05):

Ok good idea, I'll keep both, so we have the flexibility to use either as convenient...


Last updated: May 02 2025 at 03:31 UTC