← Back to Gallery

Dirichlet Character Murmurations

Oscillation patterns in L-functions of Dirichlet characters

χ mod 3
χ mod 5
χ mod 7
χ mod 11
χ mod 13
χ mod 17
Even characters
Odd characters
Primitive characters

Dirichlet Characters

A Dirichlet character χ mod q is a completely multiplicative function from integers to complex numbers with period q. The character values χ(p) for primes play a role analogous to aₚ for elliptic curves.

Universal Patterns

Following the elliptic curve discovery, mathematicians proved that murmuration-like oscillations appear in averaged character sums. The patterns depend on whether the character is even or odd.

Deep Connections

This universality across different number-theoretic objects suggests murmurations are a fundamental phenomenon related to the analytic properties of L-functions and the distribution of primes.