Improved incremental prime number sieves

Abstract

An algorithm due to Bengalloun that continuously enumerates the primes is adapted to give the first prime number sieve that is simultaneously sublinear, additive, and smoothly incremental:

• it employs only Θ(n/log log n) additions of numbers of size O(n) to enumerate the primes up to n, equalling the performance of the fastest known algorithms for fixed n;

• the transition from n to n + 1 takes only O(1) additions of numbers of size O(n). (On average, of course, O(1) such additions increase the limit up to which all primes are known from n to n + Θ(log log n)).