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1. When Less Is More: Consequence-Finding in a Weak Theory of Arithmetic

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3571237  

   Kincaid, Zachary; Koh, Nicolas; Zhu, Shaowei (January 2023, Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages)

   This paper presents a theory of non-linear integer/real arithmetic and algorithms for reasoning about this theory. The theory can be conceived of as an extension of linear integer/real arithmetic with a weakly-axiomatized multiplication symbol, which retains many of the desirable algorithmic properties of linear arithmetic. In particular, we show that theconjunctivefragment of the theory can be effectively manipulated (analogously to the usual operations on convex polyhedra, the conjunctive fragment of linear arithmetic). As a result, we can solve the following consequence-finding problem:given a ground formulaF, find the strongest conjunctive formula that is entailed byF. As an application of consequence-finding, we give a loop invariant generation algorithm that is monotone with respect to the theory and (in a sense) complete. Experiments show that the invariants generated from the consequences are effective for proving safety properties of programs that require non-linear reasoning. 

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2. Breaking the Mold: Nonlinear Ranking Function Synthesis Without Templates

   https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-65627-9_21  

   Zhu, Shaowei; Kincaid, Zachary (January 2024, Springer Nature Switzerland)

   Abstract This paper studies the problem of synthesizing (lexicographic) polynomial ranking functions for loops that can be described in polynomial arithmetic over integers and reals. While the analogous ranking function synthesis problem forlineararithmetic is decidable, even checking whether agivenfunction ranks an integer loop is undecidable in the nonlinear setting. We side-step the decidability barrier by working within the theory of linear integer/real rings (LIRR) rather than the standard model of arithmetic. We develop a termination analysis that is guaranteed to succeed if a loop (expressed as a formula) admits a (lexicographic) polynomial ranking function. In contrast to template-based ranking function synthesis inrealarithmetic, our completeness result holds for lexicographic ranking functions of unbounded dimension and degree, and effectively subsumes linear lexicographic ranking function synthesis for linearintegerloops. 

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3. Proof of the Goldberg–Seymour conjecture on edge–colorings of multigraphs

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s10878-025-01348-6  

   Chen, Guantao; Jing, Guangming; Zang, Wenan (September 2025, Journal of Combinatorial Optimization)

   Abstract Given a multigraph$$G=(V,E)$$, the edge-coloring problem (ECP) is to color the edges ofGwith the minimum number of colors so that no two adjacent edges have the same color. This problem can be naturally formulated as an integer program, and its linear programming relaxation is referred to as the fractional edge-coloring problem (FECP). The optimal value of ECP (resp. FECP) is called the chromatic index (resp. fractional chromatic index) ofG, denoted by$$\chi '(G)$$(resp.$$\chi ^*(G)$$). Let$$\Delta (G)$$be the maximum degree ofGand let$$\Gamma (G)$$be the density ofG, defined by$$\begin{aligned} \Gamma (G)=\max \left\{ \frac{2|E(U)|}{|U|-1}:\,\, U \subseteq V, \,\, |U|\ge 3 \hspace{5.69054pt}\textrm{and} \hspace{5.69054pt}\textrm{odd} \right\} , \end{aligned}$$whereE(U) is the set of all edges ofGwith both ends inU. Clearly,$$\max \{\Delta (G), \, \lceil \Gamma (G) \rceil \}$$is a lower bound for$$\chi '(G)$$. As shown by Seymour,$$\chi ^*(G)=\max \{\Delta (G), \, \Gamma (G)\}$$. In the early 1970s Goldberg and Seymour independently conjectured that$$\chi '(G) \le \max \{\Delta (G)+1, \, \lceil \Gamma (G) \rceil \}$$. Over the past five decades this conjecture, a cornerstone in modern edge-coloring, has been a subject of extensive research, and has stimulated an important body of work. In this paper we present a proof of this conjecture. Our result implies that, first, there are only two possible values for$$\chi '(G)$$, so an analogue to Vizing’s theorem on edge-colorings of simple graphs holds for multigraphs; second, although it isNP-hard in general to determine$$\chi '(G)$$, we can approximate it within one of its true value, and find it exactly in polynomial time when$$\Gamma (G)>\Delta (G)$$; third, every multigraphGsatisfies$$\chi '(G)-\chi ^*(G) \le 1$$, and thus FECP has a fascinating integer rounding property. 

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4. Removal lemmas and approximate homomorphisms

   https://doi.org/10.1017/S0963548321000572  

   Fox, Jacob; Zhao, Yufei (July 2022, Combinatorics, Probability and Computing)

   Abstract We study quantitative relationships between the triangle removal lemma and several of its variants. One such variant, which we call the triangle-free lemma , states that for each $$\epsilon>0$$ there exists M such that every triangle-free graph G has an $$\epsilon$$ -approximate homomorphism to a triangle-free graph F on at most M vertices (here an $$\epsilon$$ -approximate homomorphism is a map $$V(G) \to V(F)$$ where all but at most $$\epsilon \left\lvert{V(G)}\right\rvert^2$$ edges of G are mapped to edges of F ). One consequence of our results is that the least possible M in the triangle-free lemma grows faster than exponential in any polynomial in $$\epsilon^{-1}$$ . We also prove more general results for arbitrary graphs, as well as arithmetic analogues over finite fields, where the bounds are close to optimal. 

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5. Higher uniformity of arithmetic functions in short intervals I. All intervals

   https://doi.org/10.1017/fmp.2023.28  

   Matomäki, Kaisa; Shao, Xuancheng; Tao, Terence; Teräväinen, Joni (January 2023, Forum of Mathematics, Pi)

   Abstract We study higher uniformity properties of the Möbius function$$\mu $$, the von Mangoldt function$$\Lambda $$, and the divisor functions$$d_k$$on short intervals$$(X,X+H]$$with$$X^{\theta +\varepsilon } \leq H \leq X^{1-\varepsilon }$$for a fixed constant$$0 \leq \theta < 1$$and any$$\varepsilon>0$$. More precisely, letting$$\Lambda ^\sharp $$and$$d_k^\sharp $$be suitable approximants of$$\Lambda $$and$$d_k$$and$$\mu ^\sharp = 0$$, we show for instance that, for any nilsequence$$F(g(n)\Gamma )$$, we have$$\begin{align*}\sum_{X < n \leq X+H} (f(n)-f^\sharp(n)) F(g(n) \Gamma) \ll H \log^{-A} X \end{align*}$$ when$$\theta = 5/8$$and$$f \in \{\Lambda , \mu , d_k\}$$or$$\theta = 1/3$$and$$f = d_2$$. As a consequence, we show that the short interval Gowers norms$$\|f-f^\sharp \|_{U^s(X,X+H]}$$are also asymptotically small for any fixedsfor these choices of$$f,\theta $$. As applications, we prove an asymptotic formula for the number of solutions to linear equations in primes in short intervals and show that multiple ergodic averages along primes in short intervals converge in$$L^2$$. Our innovations include the use of multiparameter nilsequence equidistribution theorems to control type$$II$$sums and an elementary decomposition of the neighborhood of a hyperbola into arithmetic progressions to control type$$I_2$$sums. 

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