A Formalisation of the Balog–Szemerédi–Gowers Theorem in Isabelle/HOL
We describe our formalisation in the interactive theorem prover Isabelle/HOL of the Balog–Szemerédi–Gowers Theorem, a profound result in additive combinatorics which played a central role in Gowers’s proof deriving the first effective bounds for Szemerédi’s Theorem. The proof is of great mathematical interest given that it involves an interplay between different mathematical areas, namely applications of graph theory and probability theory to additive combinatorics involving algebraic objects. This interplay is what made the process of the formalisation, for which we had to develop formalisations of new background material in the aforementioned areas, more rich and technically challenging. We demonstrate how locales, Isabelle’s module system, can be employed to handle such interplays in mathematical formalisations. To treat the graph-theoretic aspects of the proof, we make use of a new, more general undirected graph theory library that we developed, which is both flexible and extensible. In addition to the main theorem, which, following our source, is formulated for difference sets, we also give an alternative version for sumsets which required a formalisation of an auxiliary triangle inequality. We moreover formalise a few additional results in additive combinatorics that are not used in the proof of the main theorem. This is the first formalisation of the Balog–Szemerédi–Gowers Theorem in any proof assistant to our knowledge.
Tue 17 JanDisplayed time zone: Eastern Time (US & Canada) change
16:00 - 17:30 | |||
16:00 22mTalk | A formalization of Doob's martingale convergence theorems in mathlibremote presentation CPP Kexing Ying University of Cambridge, Rémy Degenne Univ. Lille, Inria, CNRS, Centrale Lille, UMR 9198-CRIStAL, F-59000 Lille, France | ||
16:22 22mTalk | A Formalisation of the Balog–Szemerédi–Gowers Theorem in Isabelle/HOL CPP Angeliki Koutsoukou-Argyraki University of Cambridge, Department of Computer Science and Technology, Mantas Bakšys University of Cambridge, Chelsea Edmonds University of Cambridge | ||
16:45 22mTalk | A Formal Disproof of Hirsch Conjecture CPP Xavier Allamigeon Inria and Ecole Polytechnique, Quentin Canu Inria and Ecole Polytechnique, Pierre-Yves Strub Meta | ||
17:07 22mTalk | Formalized Class Group Computations and Integral Points on Mordell Elliptic Curves CPP Anne Baanen Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Alex Best Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Nirvana Coppola Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Sander R. Dahmen Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam |