The Least Prime whose Frobenius is an $n$-cycle

Let $L/K$ be a Galois extension of number fields. We consider the problem of bounding the least prime ideal of $K$ whose Frobenius lies in a fixed conjugacy class $C$. Under the assumption of Artin's conjecture we work with Artin $L$-functions directly to obtain an upper bound in terms of irreducible characters which are nonvanishing at $C$. As a consequence we obtain stronger upper bounds for the least prime in $C$ when many irreducible characters vanish at $C$. We also prove a Deuring-Heilbronn phenomenon for Artin $L$-functions with nonnegative Dirichlet series coefficients as a key step. We apply our results to the case when $\Gal(L/K)$ is the symmetric group $S_n$. Using classical results on the representation theory of $S_n$ we give an upper bound for the least prime whose Frobenius is an $n$-cycle which is stronger than known bounds when the characters which are nonvanishing at $n$-cycles are unramified, as well a similar result for $(n-1)$-cycles. We also give stronger bounds in the case of $S_n$-extensions over $\bQ$ which are unramified over a quadratic field. We also consider other groups and conjugacy classes where unconditional improvements are obtained.Ph.D