Riemann zeros, prime numbers, and fractal potentials

Abstract

Using two distinct inversion techniques, the local one-dimensional potentials for the Riemann zeros and prime number sequence are reconstructed. We establish that both inversion techniques, when applied to the same set of levels, lead to the same fractal potential. This provides numerical evidence that the potential obtained by inversion of a set of energy levels is unique in one dimension. We also investigate the fractal properties of the reconstructed potentials and estimate the fractal dimensions to be D=1.5 for the Riemann zeros and D=1.8 for the prime numbers. This result is somewhat surprising since the nearest-neighbor spacings of the Riemann zeros are known to be chaotically distributed, whereas the primes obey almost Poissonlike statistics. Our findings show that the fractal dimension is dependent on both level statistics and spectral rigidity, Delta(3), of the energy levels.