Almost all primes are partially regular

TL;DR

The paper proves that for almost all primes, certain eigenspaces in cyclotomic fields vanish, leading to a partial Vandiver theorem and implications for $p$-adic $L$-functions and algebraic $K$-groups, with the proof formalized in Lean.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of partial regularity for primes and proves that a density-one subset of primes exhibits this property, connecting it to several important number theory conjectures and results.

Findings

A density-one subset of primes is partially regular.

Partial Vandiver theorem holds for a density-one set of primes.

Implications for $p$-adic $L$-functions and algebraic $K$-groups.

Abstract

For odd primes $p$, we let $K_p:=\mathbb{Q}(\zeta_p)$ be the $p$th cyclotomic field and let $\omega$ denote its Teichmuller character. For $\alpha>1/2$, we say that an odd prime $p$ is partially regular if the eigenspaces of the $p$-Sylow subgroup of $\operatorname{Cl}(K_p)$ under the Galois action vanish for all characters $\omega^{p-2k}$ with \[ 2\le 2k \le \frac{\sqrt{p}}{(\log p)^{\alpha}}. \] Equivalently, $p\nmid \operatorname{num}(B_{2k})$ throughout this range. We prove that a density-one subset of primes is partially regular in this sense. By Leopoldt reflection, this yields a partial Vandiver Theorem: for a density-one set of primes $p$, the even eigenspaces $A_p(\omega^{2k})$ vanish for all even $2k$ satisfying the inequality above. This result has consequences for Kubota-Leopoldt $p$-adic $L$-functions, congruences between cusp forms and Eisenstein series, and $p$-torsion in algebraic $K$-groups. The theorem proving partial regularity for almost all $p$ is fully formalized in Lean/Mathlib and was produced automatically by AxiomProver from a natural-language statement of the conjecture.