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

From papers

Let t(N)t(N) be the largest tt for which there exist distinct sets A1,,At1,,NA_1,\dots,A_t\subseteq\\{1,\dots,N\\} such that AiAjA_i\cap A_j is a nonempty arithmetic progression for all iji\ne j. A construction gives

t(N)(N2)+1+N14.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 N1N\ge 1, that is,

t(N)=(N2)+1+N14.t(N)=\binom{N}{2}+1+\left\lfloor\frac{N-1}{4}\right\rfloor.

The claim is verified computationally for N12N\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.

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Sources & referencesView supporting material

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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