Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
For relatively prime positive integers ${{u}_{0}}$ and
$r$, we consider the least common multiple
${{L}_{n}}\,:=\,\text{lcm}\left( {{u}_{0}},\,{{u}_{1}},\,.\,.\,.\,,\,{{u}_{n}} \right)$ of the finite arithmetic progression
$\left\{ {{u}_{k}}\,:=\,{{u}_{0}}\,+\,kr \right\}_{k=0}^{n}$. We derive new lower bounds on
${{L}_{n}}$ that improve upon those obtained previously when either
${{u}_{0}}$ or
$n$ is large. When
$r$ is prime, our best bound is sharp up to a factor of
$n\,+\,1$ for
${{u}_{0}}$ properly chosen, and is also nearly sharp as
$n\,\to \,\infty$.