Motivation
A strongly regular graph with parameters (n,k,λ,μ) is a finite simple graph on n vertices in which every vertex has exactly k neighbours, every pair of adjacent vertices has exactly λ common neighbours, and every pair of non-adjacent vertices has exactly μ common neighbours. For most parameter tuples the elementary counting and integrality conditions already decide existence; the interesting cases are those that survive every known feasibility test and still resist construction. The tuple (99,14,1,2) is the smallest such case in the family λ=1, μ=2, and its existence has been open for more than fifty years. John Horton Conway offered $1000 for a resolution, as one of five problems posed at the 2014 DIMACS conference on Challenges of Identifying Integer Sequences (Conway, Five $1,000 Problems (Update 2017)).
Timeline of the problem and of what is known about it:
- 1969/1971 — the parameter set is raised by Norman Biggs in his Southampton lectures (Finite Groups of Automorphisms, LMS Lecture Note Series 6, p. 111).
- 1973 — Berlekamp, van Lint and Seidel construct a strongly regular graph with parameters (243,22,1,2) as the coset graph of the perfect ternary Golay code, settling one of the five feasible parameter tuples in this family.
- 1975 — the existence question appears as Problem 7 (attributed to J. J. Seidel) in R. K. Guy's problem list, The Geometry of Metric and Linear Spaces, Springer LNM 490, pp. 237–238; Conway had worked on it by then.
- 1984 — H. A. Wilbrink, On the (99,14,1,2) strongly regular graph, shows that such a graph cannot be vertex-transitive: no group of automorphisms can act transitively on its 99 vertices.
- 1988 — Brouwer and Neumaier, A remark on partial linear spaces of girth 5 with an application to strongly regular graphs, Combinatorica 8, 57–61.
- 2004 — Makhnev and Minakova, On automorphisms of strongly regular graphs with λ=1, μ=2, Discrete Math. Appl. 14(2), and 2011 — Behbahani and Lam, Strongly regular graphs with non-trivial automorphisms, Discrete Math. 311, 132–144: further restrictions on the possible automorphism groups.
- 2014/2017 — Conway's prize offer publicises the problem.
No graph with these parameters has been found, and no non-existence proof is known.
Setting
Fix a finite vertex set V and a simple graph g on V (irreflexive, symmetric adjacency Adj). For vertices v,w write N(v)={u:Adj(v,u)} for the neighbourhood of v and N(v)∩N(w) for the set of common neighbours. The graph g is strongly regular with parameters (n,k,λ,μ), written IsSRGWith g n k λ μ, when
- ∣V∣=n;
- ∣N(v)∣=k for every vertex v;
- ∣N(v)∩N(w)∣=λ whenever v and w are adjacent;
- ∣N(v)∩N(w)∣=μ whenever v=w are non-adjacent.
The case λ=1 says that every edge lies in exactly one triangle — equivalently, the neighbourhood of each vertex induces a perfect matching, so such graphs are locally linear. The case μ=2 says that every non-adjacent pair is the pair of opposite corners of exactly one 4-cycle. Conway's problem asks for (n,k)=(99,14) with these two local conditions.
Counting paths of length two from a fixed vertex gives k(k−λ−1)=(n−k−1)μ, which for λ=1, μ=2 reduces to 2n=k2+2; with k=14 this yields n=99. Writing A for the adjacency matrix, I for the identity and J for the all-ones matrix, strong regularity is equivalent to the matrix identity A2=kI+λA+μ(J−I−A), which for (99,14,1,2) reads A2+A=12I+2J; the eigenvalues of A other than k=14 are then 3 and −4, and integrality of their multiplicities (54 and 44) is one of the feasibility conditions that (99,14,1,2) passes.
Formalization targets
Goal
∃ α, ∃ g a simple graph on α,IsSRGWith g 99 14 1 2.
The goal is Mathlib's own proof_wanted conway_99 in Mathlib/Combinatorics/SimpleGraph/StronglyRegular.lean, stated verbatim: existence of a finite type carrying a strongly regular graph with parameters (99,14,1,2). A resolution in either direction is welcome — a proof settles the existence half, and a proof of the negation settles the non-existence half; the platform records the two as proof and disproof of the same statement.
Supporting targets
2n=k2+2,k even,k∈{2,4,14,22,112,994}
for every strongly regular graph with λ=1, μ=2: the counting identity, local linearity, and the integrality restriction that cuts the family down to five non-degenerate parameter tuples.
∃g, IsSRGWith g 9 4 1 2,∃g, IsSRGWith g 243 22 1 2
the two members of the family that are known to exist: the 3×3 rook's graph (the Paley graph on 9 vertices) and the Berlekamp–van Lint–Seidel graph.
∣E(g)∣=693,∣{triangles of g}∣=231,A2+A=12I+2J,g not vertex-transitive
structural consequences for a hypothetical 99-graph, the last one being Wilbrink's theorem.
Significance
A (99,14,1,2) graph, if it exists, is a locally linear graph of maximal density in its parameter range and a partial linear space of girth 5 with 99 points and 231 lines of size 3; its existence would also produce new association schemes and new examples for the general classification of strongly regular graphs. A non-existence proof would be the first case in this family ruled out by anything other than the classical feasibility conditions, and would say something new about how far local conditions (λ=1, μ=2) constrain global structure.
Nothing in this mission is presently formalized. Mathlib defines SimpleGraph.IsSRGWith, proves the counting identity IsSRGWith.param_eq, the complement rule IsSRGWith.compl, and the matrix identity IsSRGWith.matrix_eq, and records the 99-graph problem as a proof_wanted. The supporting targets are of three kinds: results that are proved in the literature and only need formalizing (existence at (9,4,1,2) and (243,22,1,2); Wilbrink's non-vertex-transitivity; the integrality restriction on k); routine consequences that supply reusable infrastructure (edge and triangle counts, the spectral identity, evenness of k); and the goal itself, which is open mathematics.
Difficulty
The obvious approaches fail for concrete reasons. Exhaustive search is out of range: the graph has 693 edges among (299)=4851 pairs, and no isomorph-free generation of locally linear graphs on 99 vertices is feasible. Algebraic constructions are blocked by Wilbrink's theorem — the graph cannot be vertex-transitive, so it is not a Cayley graph and cannot be produced by the group-theoretic constructions that yield most known strongly regular graphs, including the two that work at (9,4,1,2) and (243,22,1,2). On the non-existence side, every classical feasibility test (the counting identity, integrality of the eigenvalue multiplicities, the Krein conditions, the absolute bound) is passed by (99,14,1,2), so a proof of non-existence needs an argument that does not factor through the parameters alone.
Formalization scope
All statements are phrased with Mathlib's SimpleGraph.IsSRGWith on a Fintype vertex type with DecidableRel adjacency, and use Fintype.card, SimpleGraph.edgeFinset, SimpleGraph.cliqueFinset 3 (triangles as 3-cliques), SimpleGraph.adjMatrix over Z, and graph isomorphisms g ≃g g for automorphisms. The goal quantifies over α : Type together with a Fintype α instance, so the vertex set is finite by construction and the empty type does not satisfy the cardinality clause; the statement is therefore not vacuously satisfiable. Note that Mathlib's definition constrains λ only through pairs that are actually adjacent and μ only through pairs that are actually distinct and non-adjacent, so degenerate small graphs (the one-vertex graph, K3) do satisfy IsSRGWith with λ=1, μ=2; the supporting statements carry the cardinality hypotheses (0<n, 1<n) that exclude them where needed, and the degenerate degree k=2 is listed explicitly in the classification of feasible degrees.
Infrastructure a complete development needs, and which is reusable beyond this mission: interface lemmas for counting common neighbours in a strongly regular graph; the spectral theory of the adjacency matrix (multiplicities of the two non-principal eigenvalues, and their integrality), which is the missing ingredient for the classification of feasible degrees; a Lean construction of the perfect ternary Golay code and its coset graph, for the (243,22,1,2) case; and decision procedures for strong regularity of an explicitly given small graph, for the (9,4,1,2) case. Contributions to any of these are welcome, as are partial non-existence results (for instance, restrictions on automorphisms of prime order) submitted as separate statements.
Selected references
- N. Biggs, Finite Groups of Automorphisms: Course Given at the University of Southampton, October–December 1969, London Mathematical Society Lecture Note Series 6, Cambridge University Press, 1971, p. 111.
- E. R. Berlekamp, J. H. van Lint, J. J. Seidel, A strongly regular graph derived from the perfect ternary Golay code, in: A Survey of Combinatorial Theory, North-Holland, 1973, pp. 25–30.
- R. K. Guy, Problems, in: The Geometry of Metric and Linear Spaces, Springer Lecture Notes in Mathematics 490, 1975, pp. 233–244 (Problem 7, J. J. Seidel, pp. 237–238). doi:10.1007/BFb0081147
- H. A. Wilbrink, On the (99,14,1,2) strongly regular graph, in: Papers dedicated to J. J. Seidel, EUT Report 84-WSK-03, Eindhoven University of Technology, 1984, pp. 342–355. PDF
- A. E. Brouwer, A. Neumaier, A remark on partial linear spaces of girth 5 with an application to strongly regular graphs, Combinatorica 8 (1988), 57–61. doi:10.1007/BF02122552
- A. A. Makhnev, I. M. Minakova, On automorphisms of strongly regular graphs with λ=1, μ=2, Discrete Mathematics and Applications 14 (2004), no. 2. doi:10.1515/156939204872374
- M. Behbahani, C. Lam, Strongly regular graphs with non-trivial automorphisms, Discrete Mathematics 311 (2011), 132–144. doi:10.1016/j.disc.2010.10.005
- J. H. Conway, Five $1,000 Problems (Update 2017), OEIS. PDF