The original Gelfond--Schnirelman method, proposed in 1936, uses polynomials with integer coefficients and small norms on $[0,1]$ to give a Chebyshev-type 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 $\psi$-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 polynomial-type weights. We also solve the corresponding potential theoretic problem, by finding the extremal measure and its support.

For $c>1$ we denote by $\pi_c(x)$ the number of integers $n \leq x$ such that $\floor{n^c}$ is prime. In 1953, Piatetski-Shapiro has proved that $\pi_c(x) \sim \frac{x}{c\log x}$, $x \rightarrow +\infty$ holds for $c<12/11$. Many authors have extended this range, which measures our progress in exponential sums techniques. In this article we obtain $c < 1.16117\dots\;$.