Pair Correlation of zeros of Dirichlet $L$-Functions: A possible path towards the conjectures of Chowla, Elliott-Halberstam and Montgomery

Abstract

Assuming the Generalized Riemann Hypothesis and a pair correlation conjecture for the zeros of Dirichlet $L$-functions, we establish the truth of a conjecture of Montgomery (in its corrected form stated by Friedlander and Granville) on the magnitude of the error term in the prime number theorem in arithmetic progressions. As a consequence, we obtain that, under the same assumptions, the Elliott-Halberstam conjecture holds true. As another consequence, under the same assumptions, we will show that the number of Dirichlet characters $χ\pmod{q}$ for which $L(\frac{1}{2},χ)=0$ is of order less than $q^{1/2+ε}$.