Kummer's Criterion and Regular Primes in Lean

9. Infinitely many irregular primes🔗

This chapter records the Carlitz route from Kummer congruences to the infinitude of irregular primes. The theorem proved in Lean is that \{p : \mathbb{N} \mid p\text{ is prime and }p\text{ is not regular}\} is infinite. The proof is by finite-set escape: given a finite set S of candidate irregular primes, construct a new prime p\notin S dividing the numerator of a suitable divided Bernoulli number B_M/M, then use Kummer congruences and Kummer's criterion to show that p is irregular.

  1. 9.1. The divided Kummer congruence
  2. 9.2. From divided Bernoulli numerators to irregularity
  3. 9.3. The finite-set construction
  4. 9.4. Escaping every finite set
  5. 9.5. Infinitude