Super-prime numbers, also known as higher-order primes or prime-indexed primes (PIPs), are the subsequence of prime numbers that occupy prime-numbered positions within the sequence of all prime numbers. In other words, if you matched prime numbers with ordinal numbers, starting with prime number 2 matched with ordinal number 1, the primes matched with prime ordinal numbers are the super primes.

The subsequence begins

3, 5, 11, 17, 31, 41, 59, 67, 83, 109, 127, 157, 179, 191, 211, 241, 277, 283, 331, 353, 367, 401, 431, 461, 509, 547, 563, 587, 599, 617, 709, 739, 773, 797, 859, 877, 919, 967, 991, ... (sequence A006450 in the OEIS).

That is, if p(n) denotes the nth prime number, the numbers in this sequence are those of the form p(p(n)).

n	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20
p(n)	2	3	5	7	11	13	17	19	23	29	31	37	41	43	47	53	59	61	67	71
p(p(n))	3	5	11	17	31	41	59	67	83	109	127	157	179	191	211	241	277	283	331	353

Dressler & Parker (1975) used a computer-aided proof (based on calculations involving the subset sum problem) to show that every integer greater than 96 may be represented as a sum of distinct super-prime numbers. Their proof relies on a result resembling Bertrand's postulate, stating that (after the larger gap between super-primes 5 and 11) each super-prime number is less than twice its predecessor in the sequence.

Broughan & Barnett (2009) show that there are

{\frac {x}{(\log x)^{2))}+O\left({\frac {x\log \log x}{(\log x)^{3))}\right)

super-primes up to x. This can be used to show that the set of all super-primes is small.

One can also define "higher-order" primeness much the same way and obtain analogous sequences of primes (Fernandez 1999).

A variation on this theme is the sequence of prime numbers with palindromic prime indices, beginning with

3, 5, 11, 17, 31, 547, 739, 877, 1087, 1153, 2081, 2381, ... (sequence A124173 in the OEIS).

References

External links

Prime number classes

Prime number classes
By formula	Fermat ( $2 2 n + 1$ ) Mersenne ( $2 p - 1$ ) Double Mersenne ( $2 2 p -1 - 1$ ) Wagstaff $(2 p + 1)/3$ Proth ( $k \cdot2 n + 1$ ) Factorial ( $n! \pm 1$ ) Primorial ( $p n # \pm 1$ ) Euclid ( $p n # + 1$ ) Pythagorean ( $4 n + 1$ ) Pierpont ( $2 m \cdot3 n + 1$ ) Quartan ( $x 4 + y 4$ ) Solinas ( $2 m \pm 2 n \pm 1$ ) Cullen ( $n \cdot2 n + 1$ ) Woodall ( $n \cdot2 n - 1$ ) Cuban ( $x 3 - y 3)/(x - y$ ) Leyland ( $x y + y x$ ) Thabit ( $3\cdot2 n - 1$ ) Williams ( $(b -1)\cdot b n - 1$ ) Mills ( $⌊ A 3 n ⌋$ )
By integer sequence	Fibonacci Lucas Pell Newman–Shanks–Williams Perrin Partitions Bell Motzkin
By property	Wieferich (pair) Wall–Sun–Sun Wolstenholme Wilson Lucky Fortunate Ramanujan Pillai Regular Strong Stern Supersingular (elliptic curve) Supersingular (moonshine theory) Good Super Higgs Highly cototient Unique
Base-dependent	Palindromic Emirp Repunit $(10 n - 1)/9$ Permutable Circular Truncatable Minimal Delicate Primeval Full reptend Unique Happy Self Smarandache–Wellin Strobogrammatic Dihedral Tetradic
Patterns	Twin ( $p, p + 2$ ) Bi-twin chain ( $n \pm 1, 2 n \pm 1, 4 n \pm 1, \dots$ ) Triplet ( $p, p + 2 or p + 4, p + 6$ ) Quadruplet ( $p, p + 2, p + 6, p + 8$ ) k-tuple Cousin ( $p, p + 4$ ) Sexy ( $p, p + 6$ ) Chen Sophie Germain/Safe ( $p, 2 p + 1$ ) Cunningham ( $p, 2 p \pm 1, 4 p \pm 3, 8 p \pm 7, ...$ ) Arithmetic progression ( $p + a\cdotn, n = 0, 1, 2, 3, ...$ ) Balanced ( $consecutive p - n, p, p + n$ )
By size	Mega (1,000,000+ digits) Largest known list
Complex numbers	Eisenstein prime Gaussian prime
Composite numbers	Pseudoprime Catalan Elliptic Euler Euler–Jacobi Fermat Frobenius Lucas Perrin Somer–Lucas Strong Carmichael number Almost prime Semiprime Sphenic number Interprime Pernicious
Related topics	Probable prime Industrial-grade prime Illegal prime Formula for primes Prime gap
First 60 primes	2 3 5 7 11 13 17 19 23 29 31 37 41 43 47 53 59 61 67 71 73 79 83 89 97 101 103 107 109 113 127 131 137 139 149 151 157 163 167 173 179 181 191 193 197 199 211 223 227 229 233 239 241 251 257 263 269 271 277 281
List of prime numbers