English

Computations and observations on congruence covering systems

Number Theory 2023-08-24 v3

Abstract

A covering system\textit{covering system} is a collection of integer congruences such that every integer satisfies at least one congruence in the collection. A covering system is called distinct\textit{distinct} if all of its moduli are distinct. An expansive literature has developed on covering systems since their introduction by Erd\H{o}s. Here we provide a full classification of distinct covering systems with at most ten moduli, which we group together based on two forms of equivalence. As a consequence, we determine the minimum cardinality of a distinct covering system with all moduli exceeding 22, which is 1111.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2208.09720,
  title  = {Computations and observations on congruence covering systems},
  author = {Raj Agrawal and Prarthana Bhatia and Kratik Gupta and Powers Lamb and Andrew Lott and Alex Rice and Christine Rose Ward},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2208.09720},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

6 pages, one table, some expository portions removed, paper reorganized to focus on Propositions 1.2 and 3.2, to appear in Proceedings of INTEGERS 2023

R2 v1 2026-06-25T01:50:29.346Z