Packing arithmetic progressions
Combinatorics
2026-03-04 v1
Abstract
Let be a collection of finite arithmetic progressions, where each is an initial segment of the set of consecutive multiples of a positive integer . Let denote the minimum length of an interval containing pairwise disjoint \emph{shifted} copies of all members of the family . We study this parameter in the following two cases: for a fixed positive integer , (1) each progression in has the form , and (2) all progressions of have the same size , that is, . We in particular derive the following asymptotic estimates. In case (1), when , we get . In case (2), when , we get , while if , then . In both cases we additionally determine asymptotically or settle its order of magnitude for all .
Cite
@article{arxiv.2603.02786,
title = {Packing arithmetic progressions},
author = {Noga Alon and Michał Dębski and Jarosław Grytczuk and Jakub Przybyło},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.02786},
year = {2026}
}