Larger sieve

In number theory, the larger sieve is a sieve invented by Patrick X. Gallagher. The name denotes a heightening of the large sieve. Combinatorial sieves like the Selberg sieve are strongest, when only a few residue classes are removed, while the term large sieve means that this sieve can take advantage of the removal of a large number of up to half of all residue classes. The larger sieve can exploit the deletion of an arbitrary number of classes.