Even the case $k=3$ is non-trivial, but was proved by Bloom and Sisask [BlSi20]. Much better bounds for $r_3(N)$ were subsequently proved by Kelley and Meka [KeMe23]. Green and Tao [GrTa17] have proved $r_4(N)\ll N/(\log N)^{c}$ for some small constant $c>0$. The best bound available for general $k$ is due to Gowers [Go01], \[r_k(N) \ll \frac{N}{(\log\log N)^{c_k}},\] where $c_k>0$ is a small constant depending on $k$.
Curiously, Erdős [Er83c] thought this conjecture was the 'only way to approach' the conjecture that there are arbitrarily long arithmetic progressions of prime numbers, now a theorem due to Green and Tao [GrTa08].
See also [142].
See also [3].
Is \[\lim_{k\to \infty}\frac{f(k)}{\log W(k)}=\infty\] where $W(k)$ is the van der Waerden number?
If we drop the non-empty requirement then Simonovits, Sós, and Graham [SiSoGr80] have shown that \[t\leq \binom{N}{3}+\binom{N}{2}+\binom{N}{1}+1\] and this is best possible.