The lattice of arithmetic progressions

Abstract: This paper concerns the lattice

L_{n}

of subsets of

1, l d o t s, n

that are arithmetic progressions, under the inclusion order. For

n g e q 4

, this poset is not graded and thus not semimodular. We give three independent proofs of the fact that for

n g e q 2

,

m u_{n} (L_{n}) = m u (n - 1)

, where

m u_{n}

is the M"obius function of

L_{n}

and

m u

is the classical (number-theoretic) M"obius function. We also show that

L_{n}

is comodernistic, which implies that

L_{n}

is EL-labelable. Comodernism is then used to prove that the order complex

D e l t a_{n}

of the lattice is either contractible or homotopy equivalent to a sphere.

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