The Hardy-Littlewood generalised twin prime conjecture states an asymptotic formula for the number of primes $p\le X$ such that $p+h$ is prime for any non-zero even integer $h$. While this conjecture remains wide open, Matom\"{a}ki, Radziwi{\l}{\l} and Tao proved that it holds on average over $h$, improving on a previous result of Mikawa. In this talk we will discuss an almost prime analogue of the Hardy-Littlewood conjecture for which we can go beyond what is known for primes. We will describe some recent work in which we prove an asymptotic formula for the number of almost primes $n=p_1p_2 \le X$ such that $n+h$ has exactly two prime factors which holds for a very short average over $h$.

In 2004, Montgomery and Soundararajan showed (conditionally) that the distribution of the number of primes in appropriately sized intervals is approximately Gaussian and has a somewhat smaller variance than you might expect from modeling the primes as a purely random sequence. Their work depends on evaluating sums of certain arithmetic constants that generalize the twin prime constant, known as singular series. In particular, these sums exhibit square-root cancellation in each term if they have an even number of terms, but if they have an odd number of terms, there should be slightly more than square-root cancellation. I will discuss sums of singular series with an odd number of terms, including tighter bounds for small cases and the function field analog. I will also explain how this problem is connected to a simple problem about adding fractions.

We formulate, using heuristic reasoning, precise conjectures for the range of the number of primes in intervals of length  $y$ around $x$, where $y\ll(\log x)^2$. In particular, we conjecture that the maximum grows surprisingly slowly as $y$ranges from $\log x$ to $(\log x)^2$. We will show that our conjectures are somewhat supported by available data, though not so well that there may not be room for some modification. This is joint work with Andrew Granville.

We consider a crystalline universal deformation ring R of an n-dimensional, mod p Galois representation whose semisimplification is the direct sum of two non-isomorphic absolutely irreducible representations. Under some hypotheses, we obtain that R is a discrete valuation ring. The method examines the ideal of reducibility of R, which is used to construct extensions of representations in a Selmer group with specified dimension.  This can be used to deduce modularity of representations.

The recent proofs of the Tate conjecture for K3 surfaces over finite fields start by lifting the surface to characteristic 0. Serre showed in the sixties that not every variety can be lifted, but the question whether every motive lifts to characteristic 0 is open. We give a negative answer to a geometric version of this question, by constructing a smooth projective variety that cannot be dominated by a smooth projective variety that lifts to characteristic 0.