English

The reverse mathematics of Brooks' theorem

Logic 2026-01-08 v1 Combinatorics

Abstract

This is an analysis of the status of Brooks' Theorem, a celebrated result in graph coloring, from the point of view of Reverse Mathematics. We prove that the restriction of Brooks' theorem to bounded graphs of degree greater than or equal to 33 is provable in RCA0\mathsf{RCA}_0, while the statement for arbitrary graphs is equivalent to WKL0\mathsf{WKL}_0 over RCA0\mathsf{RCA}_0. Brooks' Theorem for degree 22, even when restricted to bounded graphs, is equivalent to WKL0\mathsf{WKL}_0 over RCA0\mathsf{RCA}_0.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2601.04001,
  title  = {The reverse mathematics of Brooks' theorem},
  author = {Alberto Marcone and Gian Marco Osso},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2601.04001},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

25 pages, 9 figures

R2 v1 2026-07-01T08:54:31.501Z