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	2	3	2	26	all_three	50
2	Kaisa Matomäki	University of Turku	FI	1	5	30	16	all_three	17
3	Florian Luca	Stellenbosch University	ZA	24	29	5	28	all_three	30
4	Daniel A. Goldston	San Jose State University	US	[16]	11	[63]	21	oa_only	45
5	Joni Teräväinen	University of Cambridge	GB	3	15	125	9	all_three	8
6	Alessandro Languasco	University of Padua	IT	6	21	95	12	all_three	30
7	Terence Tao	University of California, Los Angeles	US	[16]	12	[63]	101	oa_only	30
8	Kevin Ford	University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign	US	9	[76]	25	-	arx+zb	32
9	Paul Pollack	University of Georgia	US	16	30	26	13	all_three	18
10	K. Soundararajan	Stanford University	US	10	36	63	33	all_three	28
11	Runbo Li	University of Michigan	US	15	24	[59]	-	arx+oa	-
12	D. R. Heath-Brown	University of Oxford	GB	78	47	6	45	all_three	47
13	Harold G. Diamond	University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign	US	[29]	[64]	14	19	zb_only	61
14	Alessandro Zaccagnini	University of Parma	IT	7	45	87	14	all_three	32
15	Etienne Fouvry	Université Paris-Saclay	FR	[30]	[64]	15	28	zb_only	45
16	Stephan Baier	Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda Educational and Research Institute	IN	29	100	11	14	all_three	26
17	Vivian Kuperberg	ETH Zurich	CH	13	18	124	3	all_three	4
18	Giovanni Coppola	University of Salerno	IT	[20]	23	[56]	7	oa_only	-
19	Ofir Gorodetsky	Technion - Israel Institute of Technology	IL	12	58	[63]	5	arx+oa	5
20	John B. Friedlander	University of Toronto	CA	74	89	4	34	all_three	54
21	Carl Pomerance	Dartmouth College	US	52	122	8	39	all_three	54
22	Yoichi Motohashi	Nihon University	JP	59	[78]	13	19	arx+zb	-
23	Henryk Iwaniec	Rutgers University	US	[36]	197	3	50	oa+zb	54
24	William D. Banks	University of Missouri	US	14	64	64	21	all_three	32
25	Olivier Ramaré	Aix-Marseille Université	FR	[27]	[60]	27	15	zb_only	35
26	Sergey Konyagin	Steklov Mathematical Institute	RU	22	54	48	28	all_three	44
27	Hugh Lowell Montgomery	University of Michigan	US	[27]	[60]	28	32	zb_only	54
28	Cem Yalçın Yıldırım	Boğaziçi University	TR	27	57	41	2	all_three	36
29	Brad Rodgers	Queen's University	CA	17	92	[61]	8	arx+oa	13
30	Andrew Granville	Université de Montréal	CA	58	68	22	32	all_three	39
31	Jean-Louis Nicolas	University of Lyon	FR	[27]	[60]	32	16	zb_only	57
32	Jori Merikoski	University of Helsinki	FI	8	99	92	2	all_three	5
33	Yu-Chen Sun	University of Turku	FI	18	[92]	[63]	-	arxiv_only	5
34	Adolf Hildebrand	University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign	US	[27]	[60]	33	19	zb_only	43
35	Jörg Brüdern	University of Göttingen	DE	[27]	[60]	37	19	zb_only	38
36	Helmut Maier	Universität Ulm	DE	86	53	38	18	all_three	45
37	Xuancheng Shao	University of Kentucky	US	19	94	145	10	all_three	12
38	Lior Bary-Soroker	Tel Aviv University	IL	28	155	[59]	10	arx+oa	18
39	Alina Carmen Cojocaru	University of Illinois Chicago	US	[28]	[64]	50	14	zb_only	24
40	J. P. Keating	University of Oxford	GB	23	181	[66]	40	arx+oa	37
41	Alexei Kourbatov	Independent	US	31	[79]	107	4	arx+zb	-
42	S. Salerno	University of Salerno	IT	[28]	[64]	52	-	zb_only	-
43	Roger C. Baker	Brigham Young University	US	89	188	17	34	all_three	55
44	Valeriia Starichkova	UNSW Canberra	AU	39	[92]	[63]	2	arxiv_only	3
45	Hongze Li	Shanghai Jiao Tong University	CN	[28]	[64]	53	-	zb_only	36
46	Will Sawin	Princeton University	US	34	144	[59]	10	arx+oa	10
47	Mithun Kumar Das	Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics	IT	42	120	[59]	-	arx+oa	5
48	Michael Th. Rassias	Hellenic Military Academy	GR	38	46	188	24	all_three	12
49	Kevin Broughan	University of Waikato	NZ	[26]	48	158	12	oa+zb	51
50	Robert J. Lemke Oliver	Tufts University	US	43	143	[59]	11	arx+oa	52
51	Jesse Thorner	University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign	US	36	183	[66]	9	arx+oa	10
52	Emmanuel Kowalski	ETH Zurich	CH	110	[80]	43	29	arx+zb	28
53	Jie Wu	Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique	FR	[26]	65	[64]	19	oa_only	21
54	Tristan Freiberg	University of Waterloo	CA	26	159	116	4	all_three	16
55	Douglas Azevedo	Universidade Tecnologica Federal do Parana	BR	51	[92]	[63]	5	arxiv_only	6
56	Fred B. Holt	Independent	US	33	186	83	6	all_three	30
57	Jianya Liu	Shandong University	CN	[29]	[64]	66	14	zb_only	31
58	Lasse Grimmelt	University of Cambridge	GB	53	[92]	[63]	2	arxiv_only	7
59	Felix Sidokhine	Independent	CA	40	194	[59]	-	arx+oa	-
60	Apoorva Panidapu	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	US	54	[92]	[63]	-	arxiv_only	-
61	David Lowry-Duda	Brown University	US	48	145	[59]	5	arx+oa	9
62	S. W. Graham	Central Michigan University	US	[29]	[64]	69	15	zb_only	49
63	Stephan Ramon Garcia	Pomona College	US	37	84	185	27	all_three	23
64	H. J. Weber	University of Virginia	US	44	[88]	149	-	arx+zb	61
65	D. Bazzanella	Politecnico di Torino	IT	[35]	191	55	-	oa+zb	30
66	A. H. Ledoan	University of Tennessee at Chattanooga	US	45	88	165	-	all_three	19
67	Thomas Wright	Wofford College	US	66	[92]	[63]	-	arxiv_only	17
68	Maurizio Laporta	University of Naples Federico II	IT	65	117	[61]	5	arx+oa	-
69	Edva Roditty-Gershon	University of Bristol	GB	68	[92]	[63]	-	arxiv_only	11
70	Antal Balog	Alfréd Rényi Institute of Mathematics	HU	92	182	49	18	all_three	35
71	Alberto Perelli	University of Genoa	IT	[28]	85	[63]	20	oa_only	50
72	Chantal David	Concordia University	CA	73	[92]	[63]	14	arxiv_only	33
73	James Maynard	University of Oxford	GB	[28]	87	[64]	11	oa_only	13
74	H. M. Bui	University of Manchester	GB	79	[92]	[63]	11	arxiv_only	18
75	Karl-Heinz Indlekofer	Paderborn University	DE	[31]	[64]	93	10	zb_only	56
76	Lola Thompson	Utrecht University	NL	80	[92]	[63]	-	arxiv_only	14
77	Jacques Benatar	University of Helsinki	FI	81	[92]	[63]	3	arxiv_only	11
78	Jared Duker Lichtman	Stanford University	US	71	[76]	138	4	arx+zb	3
79	Aled Walker	Kings College London	GB	83	[92]	[63]	-	arxiv_only	8
80	Hao Pan	Nanjing University of Finance and Economics	CN	[33]	98	[55]	17	oa_only	20
81	István B. Kolossváry	Alfréd Rényi Institute of Mathematics	HU	85	[92]	[63]	5	arxiv_only	7
82	M. B. Milinovich	University of Mississippi	US	72	195	[58]	11	arx+oa	18
83	Katharine Woo	Stanford University	US	88	[92]	[63]	1	arxiv_only	1
84	Alex Kontorovich	Rutgers University	US	98	[79]	85	13	arx+zb	19
85	Ayyadurai Sankaranarayanan	Tata Institute of Fundamental Research	IN	[32]	[64]	104	7	zb_only	35
86	Emily Quesada-Herrera	University of Lethbridge	CA	93	[92]	[63]	-	arxiv_only	4
87	D. J. Smith	University of Bristol	GB	94	[92]	[63]	-	arxiv_only	-
88	Dimitris Koukoulopoulos	Université de Montréal	CA	[30]	[64]	111	10	zb_only	16
89	Benoit Cloitre	Independent	-	99	[92]	[63]	3	arxiv_only	-
90	P. F. Kelly	Texas A&M University	US	102	[93]	[64]	-	arxiv_only	-
91	Terry Pilling	University of Mary	US	103	[94]	[64]	2	arxiv_only	24
92	Steven J. Miller	Williams College	US	109	[100]	[49]	26	arxiv_only	24
93	Olivier Bordellès	Independent	FR	100	150	[56]	-	arx+oa	-
94	Akshaa Vatwani	Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar	IN	[36]	158	108	6	oa+zb	10
95	Akash Singha Roy	Charles University	CZ	[27]	[56]	126	2	zb_only	11
96	Trevor D. Wooley	Purdue University West Lafayette	US	105	[78]	115	28	arx+zb	36
97	Zhi-Wei Sun	Nanjing University	CN	107	178	[66]	31	arx+oa	34
98	Greg Martin	University of British Columbia	CA	[29]	[64]	139	16	zb_only	29
99	M. Ram Murty	Queen's University	CA	[38]	154	[52]	25	oa_only	46
100	Peter Shiu	Loughborough University	GB	[28]	[64]	161	-	zb_only	46

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`	27
`arxiv_only`	20
`zb_only`	18
`arx+oa`	15
`oa_only`	8
`arx+zb`	8
`oa+zb`	4

Limitations

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