On a conjecture of Montgomery and Soundararajan

Abstract

We establish lower bounds for all weighted even moments of primes up to $X$ in intervals which are in agreement with a conjecture of Montgomery and Soundararajan. Our bounds hold unconditionally for an unbounded set of values of $X$, and hold for all $X$ under the Riemann Hypothesis. We also deduce new unconditional $\Omega$-results for the classical prime counting function.