Consecutive primes in arithmetic progression refers to at least three consecutive primes which are consecutive terms in an arithmetic progression. Note that unlike an AP-k, all the other numbers between the terms of the progression must be composite. For example, the AP-3 {3, 7, 11} does not qualify, because 5 is also a prime.
For an integer k ≥ 3, a CPAP-k is k consecutive primes in arithmetic progression. It is conjectured there are arbitrarily long CPAP's. This would imply infinitely many CPAP-k for all k. The middle prime in a CPAP-3 is called a balanced prime. The largest proven as of 2009 has 7535 digits.
The first known CPAP-10 was found in 1998 by Manfred Toplic in the distributed computing project CP10 which was organized by Harvey Dubner, Tony Forbes, Nik Lygeros, Michel Mizony and Paul Zimmermann. This CPAP-10 has the smallest possible common difference, 7# = 210. The only other known CPAP-10 as of 2009 was found by the same people in 2008.
If a CPAP-11 exists then it must have a common difference which is a multiple of 11# = 2310. The difference between the first and last of the 11 primes would therefore be a multiple of 23100. The requirement for at least 23090 composite numbers between the 11 primes makes it appear extremely hard to find a CPAP-11. Dubner and Zimmermann estimate it would be at least 1012 times harder than a CPAP-10.
Read more about this topic: Primes In Arithmetic Progression
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