A Hybrid Euler-Hadamard product formula for the Riemann zeta function

We use a smoothed version of the explicit formula to find an approximation to the Riemann zeta function as a product over its nontrivial zeros multiplied by a product over the primes. We model the first product by characteristic polynomials of random matrices. This provides a statistical model of the zeta function that involves the primes in a natural way. We then employ the model in a heuristic calculation of the moments of the modulus of the zeta function on the critical line. This calculation illuminates recent conjectures for these moments based on connections with random matrix theory.