Book Description

This is a true masterpiece that will prove to be indispensable to the serious researcher for many years to come. --Enrico Bombieri, Institute for Advanced Study This is a truly comprehensive account of sieves and their applications, by two of the world's greatest authorities. Beginners will find a thorough introduction to the subject, with plenty of helpful motivation. The more practised reader will appreciate the authors' insights into some of the more mysterious parts of the theory, as well as the wealth of new examples. --Roger Heath-Brown, University of Oxford, Fellow of Royal Society This is a comprehensive and up-to-date treatment of sieve methods. The theory of the sieve is developed thoroughly with complete and accessible proofs of the basic theorems. Included is a wide range of applications, both to traditional questions such as those concerning primes, and to areas previously unexplored by sieve methods, such as elliptic curves, points on cubic surfaces and quantum ergodicity. New proofs are given also of some of the central theorems of analytic number theory; these proofs emphasize and take advantage of the applicability of sieve ideas. The book contains numerous comments which provide the reader with insight into the workings of the subject, both as to what the sieve can do and what it cannot do. The authors reveal recent developements by which the parity barrier can be breached, exposing golden nuggets of the subject, previously inaccessible. The variety in the topics covered and in the levels of difficulty encountered makes this a work of value to novices and experts alike, both as an educational tool and a basic reference.