The original Gelfond-Schnirelman method, proposed in 1936, uses polynomials with integer coe#cients and small norms on [0, 1] to give a Chebyshevtype lower bound in prime number theory. We study a generalization of this method for polynomials in many variables. Our main result is a lower bound for the integral of Chebyshev's #-function, expressed in terms of the weighted capacity. This extends previous work of Nair and Chudnovsky, and connects the subject to the potential theory with external fields generated by polynomialtype weights. We also solve the corresponding potential theoretic problem, by finding the extremal measure and its support. 1. Lower bounds for arithmetic functions Let #(x) be the number of primes not exceeding x. The celebrated Prime Number Theorem (PNT), suggested by Legendre and Gauss, states that ##.

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