Verified Certificates via SAT and Computer Algebra Systems for the Ramsey R(3, 8) and R(3, 9) Problems

Abstract: The Ramsey problem R(3, k) seeks to determine the smallest value of n such that any red/blue edge coloring of the complete graph on n vertices must either contain a blue triangle (3-clique) or a red clique of size k. Despite its significance, many previous computational results for the Ramsey R(3, k) problem such as R(3, 8) and R(3, 9) lack formal verification. To address this issue, we use the software MATHCHECK to generate certificates for Ramsey problems R(3, 8) and R(3, 9) (and symmetrically R(8, 3) and R(9, 3)) by integrating a Boolean satisfiability (SAT) solver with a computer algebra system (CAS). Our SAT+CAS approach significantly outperforms traditional SAT-only methods, demonstrating a significant improvement in runtime. For instance, our SAT+CAS approach solves R(8, 3) sequentially in 18.5 hours, while a SAT-only approach using the state-of-the-art CaDiCaL solver times out after 7 days. Additionally, in order to be able to scale to harder Ramsey problem like R(9, 3) we further optimized our SAT+CAS tool using a parallelized cube-and-conquer approach. Our results provide the first independently verifiable certificates for these Ramsey numbers, ensuring both correctness and completeness of the exhaustive search process of our SAT+CAS tool.