Digital Commons Network^™

Proving Dirichlet's Theorem On Arithmetic Progressions, Owen T. Abma

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

First proved by German mathematician Dirichlet in 1837, this important theorem states that for coprime integers a, m, there are an infinite number of primes p such that p = a (mod m). This is one of many extensions of Euclid’s theorem that there are infinitely many prime numbers. In this paper, we will formulate a rather elegant proof of Dirichlet’s theorem using ideas from complex analysis and group theory.