Long Intervals Without Distinct Multiples of the First $n$ Positive Integers
Number Theory
2026-07-11 v1 Combinatorics
Abstract
For positive integers and , let be the least integer such that contains distinct integers satisfying for , and put . A recent theorem of van Doorn [INTEGERS, 2026; arXiv:2601.16972] gives for sufficiently large . We prove Thus, for every fixed and all sufficiently large , some interval of length contains no system of pairwise distinct multiples of . The proof applies an Erd\H{o}s--Pomerance smooth-number obstruction at starting points , using local saddle-point estimates of Hildebrand and Tenenbaum.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2607.10431,
title = {Long Intervals Without Distinct Multiples of the First $n$ Positive Integers},
author = {Scott Duke Kominers},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2607.10431},
year = {2026}
}
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19 pages