Covering congruences in higher dimensions (Q1915744)

Motivated by a problem in the theory of uniform distribution of sequences in higher dimensions the authors prove the following results: There is a finite set of ordered triples (1) \((a_i,b_i,m_i)\), \(i=1, \dots, r\) with \(1<m_1< \cdots <m_r\) and with \(\text{gcd} (a_j,b_j,m_j) =1\) for all \(j\) such that every pair of integers \((x,y)\) satisfies at least one of the congruences \(a_jx-b_jy \equiv 0 \pmod {m_j}\). Finite triples (1) possessing the above mentioned properties can be viewed as a homogeneous generalization of the notion of a (nonhomogeneous) covering system of congruences introduced by P. Erdös. Homogeneity of the system allows their trivial extension to higher dimensions, so the authors conclude the paper by posing questions about the existence of homogeneous covers of \(\mathbb{Z}^n\) not stemming from certain classes of homogeneous covers of \(\mathbb{Z}^2\) or even from covers of \(\mathbb{Z}\). These questions were recently answered by A. Schinzel in the affirmative.