Covering systems with restricted divisibility (Q2286326)

In 1950 P. Erdős introduced the notion of a covering system as a system of finitely many congruences \(a_i \pmod{n_i}\), \(i=1,\dots,k\), such that every integer satisfies at least one of them. Shortly after this he and J. L. Selfridge conjectured that in every covering system there are either two moduli equal or there is a modulus even (for the history of covering systems cf. the reviewer's paper [Mitt. Math. Semin. Gießen 150, 85 p. (1981; Zbl 0479.10032)]). The conjecture is still open. In the paper under review the authors prove that in a covering system with all the moduli distinct there is a modulus divisible by either 2 or 3. The main ingredients of the ingenious proof are Lovász local lemma and Shearer-type theorem arguments.