The Top 100

Researchers active on the twin prime conjecture, bounded gaps between primes, and prime pair sieve theory

Table Details

Columns

# overall rank (lower is better)
Name the researcher
Institution current affiliation
Ctry country
aX arXiv rank
OA OpenAlex rank
zM zbMATH rank
h h-index (citation impact)
Source databases that list them
YSP years since PhD (2026 minus the Math Genealogy PhD year; a dash when the PhD year is not known)

How it works. arXiv, OpenAlex and zbMATH each rank a researcher; the three ranks merge into one, weighted toward each person's strongest. Recent work counts more. Lower is better. Click any header to sort. A rank in [brackets] is an estimate, not measured. Full method.

#	Name	Institution		aX	OA	zM	h	Source	YSP
1	Janos Pintz	Alfréd Rényi Institute of Mathematics	HU	3	3	2	26	all_three	50
2	Kaisa Matomäki	University of Turku	FI	1	5	35	16	all_three	17
3	Terence Tao	University of California, Los Angeles	US	2	12	40	101	all_three	30
4	Daniel A. Goldston	San Jose State University	US	8	11	9	21	all_three	45
5	Florian Luca	Stellenbosch University	ZA	29	29	5	28	all_three	30
6	Joni Teräväinen	University of Cambridge	GB	4	15	145	9	all_three	8
7	James Maynard	University of Oxford	GB	12	87	21	11	all_three	13
8	Alessandro Languasco	University of Padua	IT	9	21	112	12	all_three	30
9	D. R. Heath-Brown	University of Oxford	GB	89	47	6	45	all_three	47
10	Paul Pollack	University of Georgia	US	20	30	31	13	all_three	18
11	Kevin Ford	University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign	US	13	[82]	30	-	arx+zb	32
12	Runbo Li	University of Michigan	US	19	24	[57]	-	arx+oa	-
13	K. Soundararajan	Stanford University	US	14	36	76	33	all_three	28
14	Harold G. Diamond	University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign	US	[34]	[68]	16	19	zb_only	61
15	Etienne Fouvry	Université Paris-Saclay	FR	[34]	[68]	17	28	zb_only	45
16	Stephan Baier	Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda Educational and Research Institute	IN	35	100	13	14	all_three	26
17	Alessandro Zaccagnini	University of Parma	IT	10	45	103	14	all_three	32
18	Ofir Gorodetsky	Technion - Israel Institute of Technology	IL	16	58	[54]	5	arx+oa	5
19	Glyn Harman	Royal Holloway University of London	GB	[41]	148	7	19	oa+zb	44
20	Giovanni Coppola	University of Salerno	IT	[28]	23	65	7	oa+zb	-
21	John B. Friedlander	University of Toronto	CA	85	89	4	34	all_three	54
22	Carl Pomerance	Dartmouth College	US	60	122	8	39	all_three	54
23	Vivian Kuperberg	ETH Zurich	CH	17	18	144	3	all_three	4
24	Henryk Iwaniec	Rutgers University	US	[44]	196	3	50	oa+zb	54
25	M. Ram Murty	Queen's University	CA	[40]	154	11	25	oa+zb	46
26	Yoichi Motohashi	Nihon University	JP	69	[78]	15	19	arx+zb	-
27	Jie Wu	Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique	FR	47	65	24	19	all_three	21
28	William D. Banks	University of Missouri	US	18	64	77	21	all_three	32
29	Dieter Wolke	University of Freiburg	DE	[34]	[76]	28	-	zb_only	57
30	Brad Rodgers	Queen's University	CA	21	92	[60]	8	arx+oa	13
31	Yu-Chen Sun	University of Turku	FI	22	[88]	[59]	-	arxiv_only	5
32	Hugh Lowell Montgomery	University of Michigan	US	[35]	[76]	33	32	zb_only	54
33	Jori Merikoski	University of Helsinki	FI	11	99	108	2	all_three	5
34	Cem Yalçın Yıldırım	Boğaziçi University	TR	33	57	50	2	all_three	36
35	Andrew Granville	Université de Montréal	CA	67	68	27	32	all_three	39
36	Chaohua Jia	Chinese Academy of Sciences	CN	[34]	[85]	36	11	zb_only	39
37	Jean-Louis Nicolas	University of Lyon	FR	[33]	[76]	38	16	zb_only	57
38	Adolf Hildebrand	University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign	US	[33]	[76]	39	19	zb_only	43
39	Alberto Perelli	University of Genoa	IT	[33]	85	41	20	oa+zb	50
40	Hao Pan	Nanjing University of Finance and Economics	CN	30	98	70	17	all_three	20
41	Michael Th. Rassias	Hellenic Military Academy	GR	44	46	[54]	24	arx+oa	12
42	Jörg Brüdern	University of Göttingen	DE	[32]	[68]	46	19	zb_only	38
43	Adrian Dudek	University of Queensland	AU	27	67	138	5	all_three	10
44	J. P. Keating	University of Oxford	GB	28	180	[59]	40	arx+oa	37
45	Stephan Ramon Garcia	Pomona College	US	43	84	[56]	27	arx+oa	23
46	Lior Bary-Soroker	Tel Aviv University	IL	34	155	[57]	10	arx+oa	18
47	Xuancheng Shao	University of Kentucky	US	23	94	166	10	all_three	12
48	Olivier Ramaré	Aix-Marseille Université	FR	[46]	200	32	15	oa+zb	35
49	Roger C. Baker	Brigham Young University	US	100	187	19	34	all_three	55
50	Valeriia Starichkova	UNSW Canberra	AU	45	[89]	[59]	2	arxiv_only	3
51	Helmut Maier	Universität Ulm	DE	97	53	47	18	all_three	45
52	Will Sawin	Princeton University	US	40	144	[57]	10	arx+oa	10
53	Alina Carmen Cojocaru	University of Illinois Chicago	US	[33]	[68]	60	14	zb_only	24
54	S. Salerno	University of Salerno	IT	[33]	[68]	62	-	zb_only	-
55	Hongze Li	Shanghai Jiao Tong University	CN	[33]	[68]	63	-	zb_only	36
56	Mithun Kumar Das	Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics	IT	50	120	[59]	-	arx+oa	5
57	Kevin Broughan	University of Waikato	NZ	[37]	48	179	12	oa+zb	51
58	Jesse Thorner	University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign	US	42	182	[59]	9	arx+oa	10
59	Robert J. Lemke Oliver	Tufts University	US	51	143	[57]	11	arx+oa	52
60	Angel Kumchev	Towson University	US	72	[78]	56	12	arx+zb	25
61	Doychin Tolev	Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski"	BG	[33]	[76]	68	10	zb_only	25
62	Douglas Azevedo	Universidade Tecnologica Federal do Parana	BR	59	[89]	[59]	5	arxiv_only	6
63	Felix Sidokhine	Independent	CA	46	193	[62]	-	arx+oa	-
64	Lasse Grimmelt	University of Cambridge	GB	62	[89]	[59]	2	arxiv_only	7
65	Apoorva Panidapu	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	US	63	[89]	[59]	-	arxiv_only	-
66	Tristan Freiberg	University of Waterloo	CA	32	159	134	4	all_three	16
67	David Lowry-Duda	Brown University	US	56	145	[57]	5	arx+oa	9
68	Fred B. Holt	Independent	US	39	185	99	6	all_three	30
69	M. N. Huxley	Cardiff University	GB	[34]	[76]	75	23	zb_only	56
70	Emmanuel Kowalski	ETH Zurich	CH	122	[94]	53	29	arx+zb	28
71	Jianya Liu	Shandong University	CN	[34]	[68]	79	14	zb_only	31
72	H. J. Weber	University of Virginia	US	52	[88]	170	-	arx+zb	61
73	S. W. Graham	Central Michigan University	US	[34]	[68]	82	15	zb_only	49
74	A. H. Ledoan	University of Tennessee at Chattanooga	US	53	88	186	-	all_three	19
75	D. Bazzanella	Politecnico di Torino	IT	[42]	190	66	-	oa+zb	30
76	Thomas Wright	Wofford College	US	76	[89]	[59]	-	arxiv_only	17
77	Edva Roditty-Gershon	University of Bristol	GB	78	[89]	[59]	-	arxiv_only	11
78	Ben Green	University of Oxford	GB	61	[88]	154	5	arx+zb	23
79	Maurizio Laporta	University of Naples Federico II	IT	75	117	[60]	5	arx+oa	-
80	Chantal David	Concordia University	CA	83	[89]	[59]	14	arxiv_only	33
81	Antal Balog	Alfréd Rényi Institute of Mathematics	HU	104	181	59	18	all_three	35
82	Alexandru Zaharescu	University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign	US	68	119	109	24	all_three	35
83	H. M. Bui	University of Manchester	GB	88	[89]	[59]	11	arxiv_only	18
84	Lola Thompson	Utrecht University	NL	90	[89]	[59]	-	arxiv_only	14
85	Jacques Benatar	University of Helsinki	FI	92	[89]	[59]	3	arxiv_only	11
86	Aled Walker	Kings College London	GB	94	[89]	[59]	-	arxiv_only	8
87	István B. Kolossváry	Alfréd Rényi Institute of Mathematics	HU	96	[89]	[59]	5	arxiv_only	7
88	M. B. Milinovich	University of Mississippi	US	82	194	[62]	11	arx+oa	18
89	Katharine Woo	Stanford University	US	99	[89]	[59]	1	arxiv_only	1
90	Timothy S. Trudgian	Australian National University	AU	91	[83]	98	13	arx+zb	16
91	Jared Duker Lichtman	Stanford University	US	81	[90]	159	4	arx+zb	3
92	Karl-Heinz Indlekofer	Paderborn University	DE	[35]	[76]	110	10	zb_only	56
93	David T. Nguyen	American Institute of Mathematics	US	102	[90]	[64]	3	arxiv_only	5
94	Minggao Lu	Shanghai University	CN	[33]	[68]	117	3	zb_only	-
95	Emily Quesada-Herrera	University of Lethbridge	CA	105	[94]	[70]	-	arxiv_only	4
96	D. J. Smith	University of Bristol	GB	106	[94]	[70]	-	arxiv_only	-
97	Ayyadurai Sankaranarayanan	Tata Institute of Fundamental Research	IN	[33]	[66]	122	7	zb_only	35
98	Alex Kontorovich	Rutgers University	US	110	[88]	101	13	arx+zb	19
99	Benoit Cloitre	Independent	-	111	[99]	[70]	3	arxiv_only	-
100	Dimitris Koukoulopoulos	Université de Montréal	CA	[32]	[66]	129	10	zb_only	16

Source column legend

The Source column records which of the pipelines ranked each researcher directly.

all_three: ranked directly by arXiv, OpenAlex, and zbMATH. The unanimous core.
arx+oa: ranked by arXiv and OpenAlex, but not zbMATH.
arx+zb: ranked by arXiv and zbMATH, but not OpenAlex.
oa+zb: ranked by OpenAlex and zbMATH, but not arXiv.
arxiv_only: ranked only by the arXiv pipeline.
oa_only: ranked only by OpenAlex. Often senior figures who publish in journals and do not post preprints.
zb_only: ranked only by zbMATH. Often pre-1995 Russian and Chinese number theorists.

Source	Count
`all_three`	31
`zb_only`	19
`arxiv_only`	18
`arx+oa`	15
`arx+zb`	9
`oa+zb`	8

Limitations

This list reflects publication output and citation network density, not subjective importance. A starting point, not a verdict.