1. Introduction
The RH [1] is one of the most important unsolved problems in mathematics. Although there are many achievements towards proving this celebrated hypothesis, it remains an open problem [2,3]. The Riemann zeta function is originally defined in the half-plane
by the absolutely convergent series [2]
The connection between the above-defined Riemann zeta function and prime numbers was discovered by Euler, i.e., the famous Euler product
where
p runs over the prime numbers.
Riemann showed in his paper in 1859 how to extend the zeta function to the whole complex plane
by analytic continuation, i.e.
where
is the symbol adopted by Riemann to represent the contour integral from
to
around a domain which includes the value 0 but no other point of discontinuity of the integrand in its interior.
Or equivalently,
where
is the Jaccobi theta function,
is the Gamma function in the following Weierstrass expression
where
is the Euler-Mascheroni constant.
As shown by Riemann,
extends to
as a meromorphic function with only a simple pole at
, with residue 1, and satisfies the following functional equation
The Riemann zeta function
has zeros at the negative even integers:
,
,
,
, ⋯ and one refers to them as the
trivial zeros. The other zeros of
are the complex numbers, i.e.,
non-trivial zeros [2].
In 1896, Hadamard [4] and Poussin [5] independently proved that no zeros could lie on the line , together with the functional equation and the fact that there are no zeros with real part greater than 1, this showed that all non-trivial zeros must lie in the interior of the critical strip . Later on, Hardy (1914) [6], Hardy and Littlewood (1921) [7] showed that there are infinitely many zeros on the critical line .
To give a summary of the related research works on the RH, we have the following results on the properties of the non-trivial zeros of [4–9].
Lemma 1: Non-trivial zeroes of , noted as , have the following properties
1) The number of non-trivial zeroes is infinity;
2) ;
3) ;
4) are all non-trivial zeroes.
As further study, the completed zeta function
is proposed, i.e.
It is well-known that
is an entire function of order 1. This implies
is analytic, and can be expressed as infinite product of polynomial factors, in the whole complex plane
. In addition, replacing
s with
in Eq.(6), and combining Eq.(5), we obtain the following functional equation
According to the definition of , and recalling Eq.(4), the trivial zeros of are canceled by the poles of . The zero of and the pole of cancel; the zero and the pole of cancel [9–11]. Thus, all zeros of are exactly the nontrivial zeros of . Then we have the following Lemma 2.
Lemma 2: The zeros of coincide with the non-trivial zeros of .
Consequently, the following two statements are equivalent.
Statement 1: All the non-trivial zeros of have real part equal to .
Statement 2: All zeros of have real part equal to .
To prove the RH, a natural thinking is to estimate the numbers of non-trivial zeros of inside or outside some certain areas according to Argument Principle. Along this train of thought, there are many research works. Let denote the number of non-trivial zeros of inside the rectangle: , and let denote the number of non-trivial zeros of on the line . Selberg proved that there exist positive constants c and , such that [12], later on, Levinson proved that [13], Lou and Yao proved that [14], Conrey proved that [15], Bui, Conrey and Young proved that [16], Feng proved that [17], Wu proved that [18].
On the other hand, many non-trivial zeros have been calculated by hand or by computer programs. Among others, Riemann found the first three non-trivial zeros [19]. Gram found the first 15 zeros based on Euler-Maclaurin summation [20]. Titchmarsh calculated the 138th to 195th zeros using the Riemann-Siegel formula [21,22]. Here are the first three (pairs of) non-trivial zeros: .
The idea of this paper is originated from Euler’s work on proving the following famous equality
This interesting result is deduced by comparing the like terms of two types of infinite expressions (infinite power series and infinite product) of
as shown in the following
Then the author of this paper conjectured that
should be factored into
or something like that, which was verified by paring
and
in the Hadamard product of
, i.e.
.
The Hadamard product of
as shown in Eq.(10) was first proposed by Riemann, however, it was Hadamard who showed the validity of this infinite product expansion [23].
where
,
runs over all zeros of
.
Hadamard pointed out that to ensure the absolute convergence of the infinite product expansion,
and
are paired. Later in
Section 4, we will show that
and
can also be paired to ensure the absolute convergence of the infinite product expansion.
2. Preliminary Lemmas
This section provides some preliminary lemmas to support the proof of the key lemma - Lemma 8 in next section.
To begin with, we introduce the ring of polynomial, denoted as
, which is defined as the set of all polynomials in
x over the field of real numbers
, i.e.
The set equipped with the operations + (addition) and · (multiplication) is the ring of polynomial in x over the field .
The ring of polynomial is a subset of the ring of entire function, and both rings possess properties of divisibility, coprimality, and greatest common divisor, denoted as "gcd". There are also differences between these two rings. Among others, polynomials have degrees, entire functions in infinite product form do not. For entire functions, their divisibility, coprimality and common factors are determined by the relationships between their zero sets [24–26].
Although references [24–26] provide definitions for divisibility, coprimality, and greatest common divisor of entire functions, we present the corresponding definitions below to emphasize the specific case considered in this paper: the relationship between a polynomial and an entire function represented as an infinite product of polynomial factors.
Definition: Let , be an entire function, and . We say divides , denoted as , if there exists an entire function , such that .
Definition: Let , be an entire function, and , a polynomial is called the greatest common divisor of and if: 1). and ; 2). For every polynomial that divides both and , we have .
Definition: Let , be an entire function, and . We say that and are coprime (relatively prime) if whenever a polynomial divides both and , then must be a nonzero constant. This is denoted by .
To support the proof of the key lemma - Lemma 8 in next section. We need the following lemmas.
Lemma 3: Let . If is irreducible (prime) and divides the product , then divides one of the polynomials .
Lemma 4: Let . If is irreducible and is any polynomial, then either divides or .
Lemma 5: Let . If is irreducible and divides the infinite product , then divides one of the polynomials .
Remark: The contents of Lemma 3 and Lemma 4 can be found in many textbooks of linear algebra, modern algebra, or abstract algebra, see for example references [27–29]. Below we give the proof of Lemma 5.
Proof of Lemma 5: The proof is conducted by Transfinite Induction.
Let ( is an ordinal number) be the statement:
". If is irreducible and divides the product , then divides one of the polynomials ", where , with the ordering that for all natural numbers n, is the smallest limit ordinal other than 0.
Base Case: is an obvious fact according to Lemma 3 with ;
Successor Case: To prove , we have , where . Then according to Lemma 3 with , we have or . Considering : if divides , then divides one of , thus we know .
Limit Case: We need to prove
,
is any limit ordinal other than 0. For the sake of contradiction, assume that
, i.e.,
does not divide any polynomial
. Then, considering
is irreducible with the property stated in Lemma 4, we have:
which contradicts
divides one of the polynomials
. Thus, we know that the assumption
is false.
Then is true, i.e., the Limit Case is true.
That completes the proof of Lemma 5.
Additionally, we also need the following results on properties of zeros of entire function for understanding the multiplicity of zeros of .
Lemma 6: Let be a non-zero entire function, and let be a zero of . Then the multiplicity of is a finite positive integer.
Proof: Let , be an entire function, which means it is holomorphic on the whole complex plane. Suppose has a zero at of multiplicity m, then , where is also an entire function and .
Assume for contradiction that m is infinite, which implies there exists an accumulation point of zeros in the neighbor of . Then, by Identity Theorem for holomorphic functions, and considering "0" is also an entire function, we have , which contradicts the given condition that . Thus, the assumption is false, i.e., m must be a finite positive integer.
That completes the proof of Lemma 6.
Remark: Statements similar to Lemma 6 can be found in Reference [30] and other related textbooks/monographs.
Lemma 7: Let be a non-zero entire function, and let be a zero of . Then the multiplicity of is unique.
Proof: Let , be an entire function, which has a multiple zero at of multiplicity m. We can write: , where is also an entire function and .
Assume for contradiction that there exists another integer such that n is also a multiplicity of the zero . This means we can also write: , where is an entire function and .
Since both expressions for must be equal, we then obtain . Without loss of generality, consider , then we have: , which is a contradiction to . Thus, the assumption is false, i.e., the multiplicity of a zero of any non-zero entire function is unique.
That completes the proof of Lemma 7.
3. Key Lemma
In this section, we prove the key lemma - Lemma 8, which is substantial for the proof of the RH.
Lemma 8: Given two entire functions represented as absolutely convergent (on the whole complex plane) infinite products of polynomial factors
and
where
s is a complex variable,
and
are the complex conjugate zeros of the completed zeta function
,
and
are real numbers,
,
is the multiplicity of quadruplets of zeros
.
Remark: As stated in the Abstract, the divisibility contained in the equation and the uniqueness of are the key points to the proof of Lemma 8, as they ensure that each polynomial factor can only divide (and thereby equal) the corresponding factor on the opposite side of the equation; otherwise, it would violate the uniqueness of . As stated in Lemma 6 and Lemma 7, is finite and unique, and then unchangeable.
Proof: First of all, we have the following fact:
It is obvious that
where
with
, and "
l" is an arbitrary element of set
. In brief,
means that
i runs over the elements of
excluding "
l".
Next, we exclude the possibility of
and
. Considering the polynomial factor
, with discriminant
, is irreducible over the field
, similarly,
with discriminant
is also irreducible over the field
, we know that
and similarly
It should be noted that
imply (
) and (
) are the same zeros in terms of quadruplets, which contradicts the uniqueness of the multiplicity of zeros of
.
Thus, in order to keep the multiplicities of zeros of
unchanged,
can not divide
,
can not divide
, denoted as
,
, respectively. Therefore, we obtain from Eq.(18) the following result.
Let
l run over from 1 to
∞, and repeat the above process as shown in Eq.(19), we get
On the other hand, based on Eq.(14), we have the following fact
In addition, limiting the imaginary parts
of zeros to
in order to keep the multiplicities of zeros unchanged while
, we finally get
i.e.,
That completes the proof of Lemma 8.
4. A Proof of the RH
This section presents a proof of the Riemann Hypothesis. We first prove that Statement 2 of the RH is true, and then by Lemma 2, Statement 1 of the RH is also true. To be brief, to prove the Riemann Hypothesis, it suffices to show that in the new expression of as shown in Eq.(25).
Proof of the RH: The details are delivered in three steps as follows.
Step 1:
It is well-known that zeros of
always come in complex conjugate pairs. Then by pairing
and
in the Hadamard product as shown in Eq.(10), we have
where
(according to Lemma 1).
The absolute convergence of the infinite product in Eq.(22) in the form
depends on the convergence of infinite series
(since
), which is an obvious fact according to Theorem 2 in
Section 2, Chapter IV of Ref.[11]. Thus, the infinite products as shown in Eq.(23) and Eq.(22) are absolutely convergent for
.
Further, considering the absolute convergence of
we have the following new expression of
by putting all the possible multiple factors (zeros) together:
where
is the multiplicity of
,
.
Step 2: Replacing
s with
in Eq.(25), we obtain the infinite product expression of
, i.e.,
where
is the multiplicity of
,
.
The absolute convergence of the infinite product as shown in Eq.(26) can be reduced to that of , whose absolute convergence depends also on the convergence of infinite series (since ). Then from the analysis in Step 1, the infinite product as shown in Eq.(26) is absolutely convergent for .
Step 3: According to the functional equation
, and considering Eq.(25) and Eq.(26), we have
which is equivalent to
where
is the multiplicity of quadruplets (
),
.
are in order of increasing
, i.e.,
.
To check the absolute convergence (on the whole complex plane) of both sides of Eq.(28), it suffices to prove the convergence of infinite series , which is an obvious fact because
Then we have , that means and have the same convergence.
Finally, according to Lemma 8, Eq.(28) is equivalent to
Thus, we conclude that all zeros of the completed zeta function
have real part equal to
, i.e., Statement 2 of the RH is true. According to Lemma 2, Statement 1 of the RH is also true, i.e., all the non-trivial zeros of the Riemann zeta function
have real part equal to
.
That completes the proof of the RH.
Data Availability Statement
This manuscript has no associated data.
Acknowledgments
The author would like to gratefully acknowledge the help received from Dr. Victor Ignatov (Independent Researcher), Prof. Mark Kisin (Harvard University), Prof. Yingmin Jia (Beihang University), Prof. Tianguang Chu (Peking University), Prof. Guangda Hu (Shanghai University), Prof. Jiwei Liu (University of Science and Technology Beijing), and Dr. Shangwu Wang (Beijing 99view Technology Limited, my classmate in Tsinghua University), while preparing this article. The author is also grateful to the editors and referees of PNAS for their constructive comments and suggestions. Finally, with this manuscript, the author pays tribute to Bernhard Riemann and other predecessor mathematicians. They are the shining stars in the sky of human civilization.
Conflicts of Interest
On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.
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