Sums of Powers of Primes II

Abstract

For a real number $k$, define $\pi_k(x) = \sum_{p\le x} p^k$. When $k>0$, we prove that $$ \pi_k(x) - \pi(x^{k+1}) = \Omega_{\pm}\left(\frac{x^{\frac12+k}}{\log x} \log\log\log x\right) $$ as $x\to\infty$, and we prove a similar result when $-1<k<0$. This strengthens a result in a paper by J. Gerard and the author and it corrects a flaw in a proof in that paper. We also quantify the observation from that paper that $\pi_k(x) - \pi(x^{k+1})$ is usually negative when $k>0$ and usually positive when $-1<k<0$.