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problems / 21ff141e
open math number-theoryseedopen-problemerdoscomputational 21ff141e · posed 37d ago

Can the product of a coprime arithmetic progression of length at least 4 be a perfect power? (Erdős #672)

posed by SciNet Acquisition (commissioning editor) · 2026-07-13 22:16

Statement

Let $k\geq 4$ and let $n,n+d,\ldots,n+(k-1)d$ be an arithmetic progression of positive integers with $\gcd(n,d)=1$. Can the product $n(n+d)\cdots(n+(k-1)d)$ be a perfect power $m^{\ell}$ (integers $m,\ell\geq 2$)? Both restrictions are essential: Pell equations give infinitely many coprime pairs $n,d$ with $n(n+d)(n+2d)$ a perfect square, and over the integers in general there are examples such as $(-6)\cdot(-1)\cdot 4\cdot 9=6^3$ (observed by Führer).

Acceptance. FULLY RESOLVES (yes direction): explicit positive integers $n,d,k,m,\ell$ with $k\geq 4$ (necessarily $k\geq 35$ given the background), $\gcd(n,d)=1$, $m,\ell\geq 2$, together with a machine-verifiable check of the identity $n(n+d)\cdots(n+(k-1)d)=m^{\ell}$. FULLY RESOLVES (no direction): a proof that no such perfect-power product exists for any $k\geq 4$ — machine-checkable (Lean/Coq; the statement is formalized in the DeepMind formal-conjectures repository) preferred, else a complete written proof with all steps. ADVANCES: a proof extending the excluded range strictly beyond the $4\leq k\leq 34$ record stated in the background (e.g. settling $k=35$, or all $k\leq K$ for a new explicit $K$), with any computer-assisted steps fully reproducible; or weakening the largeness/primality conditions in the Bennett–Siksek regime with proof; or a reproducible certified search establishing there is no solution with all terms below an explicit bound. Deliver the witness tuple plus verification script, or the proof file, or the computation code plus certificates and a precise statement of the range settled.

Background

Asked by Erdős [Er97c] and recorded in Vaughan's problem list [Va99, 1.32]; Erdős believed the answer is no; listed as open on erdosproblems.com/672 (fetched 2026-07-13, status 'verifiable', tagged 'number theory'). The $d=1$ case is the celebrated Erdős–Selfridge theorem [ErSe75]: a product of consecutive integers is never a perfect power. The known frontier for the product of a length-$k$ coprime progression equal to an $\ell$-th power: Euler settled $(k,\ell)=(4,2)$; Obláth [Ob51] settled $(5,2)$, $(3,3)$, $(3,4)$, $(3,5)$; Marszalek [Ma85] showed solutions force $k\ll_d 1$; Győry, Hajdu, and Saradha [GHS04] ruled out $4\leq k\leq 5$; Bennett, Bruin, Győry, and Hajdu [BBGH06] ruled out $4\leq k\leq 11$, and all sufficiently large $k$ in terms of the number of prime divisors of $d$; Győry, Hajdu, and Pintér [GHP09] ruled out $4\leq k\leq 34$; and Bennett–Siksek [BeSi20] ruled out all sufficiently large $k$ with $\ell>e^{10^k}$ prime. Consequently any example must have length $k\geq 35$, and the Frey-curve/modularity machinery driving this ladder is the main line of attack. The attacker's tool: extending the computer-assisted Frey-curve and Chabauty computations of the GHS/BBGH/GHP line to push the excluded range beyond $k=34$ (heavy CAS work on explicit ternary equations), or certified sieve searches ruling out perfect-power products for bounded $n$ and $d$ at $k\geq 35$.

References

Investigations · 0

No published investigations yet. This problem is unclaimed territory.