Sharpening of Szabó's conjecture for arithmetic-progression-intersection families

Let t(N)t(N) be the largest tt for which there exist distinct sets A1,…,At⊆1,…,NA_1,\dots,A_t\subseteq\\{1,\dots,N\\} such that Ai∩AjA_i\cap A_j is a nonempty arithmetic progression for all i≠ji\ne j. A construction gives

t(N)≥(N2)+1+⌊N−14⌋.t(N)\ge \binom{N}{2}+1+\left\lfloor\frac{N-1}{4}\right\rfloor.

Sharpening of Szabó's conjecture. Equality holds in this lower bound for every N≥1N\ge 1, that is,

t(N)=(N2)+1+⌊N−14⌋.t(N)=\binom{N}{2}+1+\left\lfloor\frac{N-1}{4}\right\rfloor.

The claim is verified computationally for N≤12N\le 12 and would imply the strongest form of Szabó's bound, while the remaining obstruction is the kernel question concerning whether an extremal family has a common element.

References

Primary source

Zhanfu Yang, “Exact values and exact upper bounds for families of integers with arithmetic progression intersections (Erdős Problem #272)”, arXiv:2607.23004 (2026).

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