English

On A Conjecture Regarding Permutations Which Destroy Arithmetic Progressions

Combinatorics 2018-05-15 v4 Number Theory

Abstract

Hegarty conjectured for n2,3,5,7n\neq 2, 3, 5, 7 that Z/nZ\mathbb{Z}/n\mathbb{Z} has a permutation which destroys all arithmetic progressions mod nn. For nn0n\ge n_0, Hegarty and Martinsson demonstrated that Z/nZ\mathbb{Z}/n\mathbb{Z} has an arithmetic-progression destroying permutation. However n01.4×1014n_0\approx 1.4\times 10^{14} and thus resolving the conjecture in full remained out of reach of any computational techniques. However, this paper using constructions modeled after those used by Elkies and Swaminathan for the case of Z/pZ\mathbb{Z}/p\mathbb{Z} with pp being prime, establish the conjecture in full. Furthermore our results do not rely on the fact that it suffices to study when n<n0n<n_0 and thus our results completely independent of the proof given by Hegarty and Martinsson.

Cite

@article{arxiv.1708.00144,
  title  = {On A Conjecture Regarding Permutations Which Destroy Arithmetic Progressions},
  author = {Mehtaab Sawhney and David Stoner},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1708.00144},
  year   = {2018}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-22T21:03:03.099Z