Consecutive sums of two squares in arithmetic progressions

In 2000, Shiu proved that there are infinitely many primes whose last digit is 1 such that the next prime also ends in a 1. However, it is an open problem to show that there are infinitely many primes ending in 1 such that the next prime ends in 3. In this talk, we'll instead consider the sequence of sums of two squares in increasing order. In particular, we'll show that there are infinitely many sums of two squares ending in 1 such that the next sum of two squares ends in 3. We'll show further that all patterns of length 3 occur infinitely often: for any modulus q, every sequence (a mod q, b mod q, c mod q) appears infinitely often among consecutive sums of two squares. We'll discuss some of the proof techniques, and explain why they fail for primes. Joint work with Noam Kimmel.