Lean statement

Cubic lower bounds for permanent determinantal complexity

Lean is a language for mathematical statements and proofs that a computer can verify. This page shows one statement file from OpenAI’s release, possible paper matches and independent reports. The code-like names below identify the definitions or theorems selected by the proof-verification settings.

Theorem selected for verification: OAI.PermanentBorder.permanent_cubic_lower_bounds

Lean statement file: PermanentCubic.leanShow on the mapOpenAI’s Lean catalogue does not list this as a main result; the release’s Lean notes for family 108 link it.

See the candidate theorem Who ran the proof-verification program Report a comparison with the paper (GitHub issue)

The Lean statement

The lines of the Lean statement that state the theorem, then the definitions in the file that it uses.

theorem permanent_cubic_lower_bounds :    (∀ (m n : ℕ), 1408 ≤ m → HasBorderDeterminant n (permanentPolynomial m) →      (m : ℝ)^3 / (5529600 * Real.exp 1) ≤ (n : ℝ)) ∧    (∀ (m n : ℕ), 1408 ≤ m → HasExactDeterminant n (permanentPolynomial m) →      (m : ℝ)^3 / (5529600 * Real.exp 1) ≤ (n : ℝ)) := by  sorry

A Lean statement states the theorem and leaves its proof as sorry on purpose. OpenAI’s proof is in a separate solution module, and a program called Comparator checks that proof against this statement.

Definitions needed to read it

Local definitions the statement names, followed through the definitions they name in turn. The match is by name in the source text, so a name reached only through notation can be missed; the full file is below.

abbreviation OAI.PermanentBorder.Variables line 10
```
abbrev Variables (m : ℕ) := Fin m × Fin m
```

abbreviation OAI.PermanentBorder.Poly line 11

abbrev Poly (σ : Type*) := MvPolynomial σ ℂ

definition OAI.PermanentBorder.permanentPolynomial line 13

noncomputable def permanentPolynomial (m : ℕ) : Poly (Variables m) :=  ∑ τ : Equiv.Perm (Fin m), ∏ i : Fin m, MvPolynomial.X (i, τ i)

definition OAI.PermanentBorder.affineMatrixPolynomial line 16

noncomputable def affineMatrixPolynomial {σ : Type*} [Fintype σ] (n : ℕ)    (A₀ : Matrix (Fin n) (Fin n) ℂ)    (A : σ → Matrix (Fin n) (Fin n) ℂ) : Poly σ :=  Matrix.det (fun i j => MvPolynomial.C (A₀ i j) +    ∑ v : σ, MvPolynomial.C (A v i j) * MvPolynomial.X v)

definition OAI.PermanentBorder.HasBorderDeterminant line 22

def HasBorderDeterminant {σ : Type*} [Fintype σ] (n : ℕ) (p : Poly σ) : Prop :=  0 < n ∧ ∃ (A₀ : ℕ → Matrix (Fin n) (Fin n) ℂ)    (A : ℕ → σ → Matrix (Fin n) (Fin n) ℂ),    ∀ d : σ →₀ ℕ, Tendsto      (fun j => (affineMatrixPolynomial n (A₀ j) (A j)).coeff d)      atTop (𝓝 (p.coeff d))

definition OAI.PermanentBorder.HasExactDeterminant line 29

def HasExactDeterminant {σ : Type*} [Fintype σ] (n : ℕ) (p : Poly σ) : Prop :=  0 < n ∧ ∃ (A₀ : Matrix (Fin n) (Fin n) ℂ)    (A : σ → Matrix (Fin n) (Fin n) ℂ), affineMatrixPolynomial n A₀ A = p

Possible paper match, with no recorded review

Atlas selected this possible match by comparing words in the Lean statement with every statement in the family. No review of whether the statements mean the same thing is recorded.

Words of the Lean statement, its names split into words, that also appear in the theorem: integer. Found in the paper’s title, which its main theorem states: cubic, border, lower, permanent and bound.

Theorem 1.1 of A cubic lower bound for border determinantal complexity of the permanent

Theorem

There exist absolute constants c>0 and m_0 such that, for every integer m\ge m_0,

\bdc(\per_m)\ge c m^3.

One may take c=1/(5\,529\,600e) and m_0=1408.

Section 1, Introduction Read it in the paper TeX source, line 41

Show the TeX

There exist absolute constants $c>0$ and $m_0$ such that, for every integer
$m\ge m_0$,
\[
 \bdc(\per_m)\ge c m^3.
\]
One may take $c=1/(5\,529\,600e)$ and $m_0=1408$.

Other possible paper matches, closest wording first

Proposition 3.1 of A cubic lower bound for border determinantal complexity of the permanent. Words of the Lean statement, its names split into words, that also appear in the theorem: complex, matrix, permanent, affine and integers. Shared only with the release’s name for the Lean statement or OpenAI’s note on it: times and linear.
Theorem 2.3 of A cubic lower bound for border determinantal complexity of the permanent. Words of the Lean statement, its names split into words, that also appear in the theorem: polynomial, lower and bound.
Proposition 8.3 of A cubic lower bound for border determinantal complexity of the permanent. Words of the Lean statement, its names split into words, that also appear in the theorem: determinants, affine and integers. Shared only with the release’s name for the Lean statement or OpenAI’s note on it: times, coefficientwise, limit and linear.
Proposition 6.5 of A cubic lower bound for border determinantal complexity of the permanent. Words of the Lean statement, its names split into words, that also appear in the theorem: determinant and matrix.
Proposition 7.3 of A cubic lower bound for border determinantal complexity of the permanent. Words of the Lean statement, its names split into words, that also appear in the theorem: polynomial, permanent, affine and integer.
Corollary 9.2 of A cubic lower bound for border determinantal complexity of the permanent. Words of the Lean statement, its names split into words, that also appear in the theorem: finite, bounds and affine. Shared only with the release’s name for the Lean statement or OpenAI’s note on it: coefficientwise, limit and linear.

How Atlas selects possible matches: it compares words in the Lean statement with every statement in the family. It also splits Lean names into words. The release’s label and note receive less weight; a main theorem wins a close match. If the Lean wording yields no clear match, Atlas uses the catalogue description. This selects passages to compare; it does not establish that they mean the same thing.

Reported Comparator runs

three independent groups report that Comparator accepted runs for this Lean statement file: Carlos Toledo’s cert-machine; MathVet; Neal McBurnett’s openai-math-lean-tooling. Each group reports its own Comparator run for this statement file. Atlas has not repeated the runs.

For a configured theorem, Comparator tests whether OpenAI’s proof proves the exact Lean statement. Some files instead configure definitions for comparison by name and type. Acceptance does not establish that the statement means the same thing as the paper’s theorem.

Carlos Toledo’s cert-machine

How they ran it, in their words

Every Comparator challenge re-run on Linux with nanoda switched on, decided by a preregistered rule; every family’s challenge statements read against OpenAI’s headline, clause by clause. Decider: Comparator (leanprover/comparator d03acab1 = tag v4.34.0, built with the release’s toolchain v4.34.1), lean4export 076e8e57, landrun 811cfff5, nanoda_lib 3a240721 — on GitHub’s Linux runners (.github/workflows/openai-math-kernel.yml), one j…

Accepted Their term: “CERTIFIED”.
Re-run through Comparator with the independent nanoda kernel switched on: Lean’s kernel and nanoda both accept OpenAI’s solution.
Reported 10 October 2026, at the release version shown here. Original verification report

MathVet

How they ran it, in their words

An independent, model-assisted, pre-referee reading of each family’s challenge statements against its headline claim under a published rubric (PROTOCOL.md), with its own Comparator runs per challenge. Its protocol describes a planned error-rate study; this import does not establish that the study has been completed.

Accepted Their term: “comparator-sandboxed-pass”.
Re-run through Comparator in a sandboxed virtual machine: accepted.
Reported 8 October 2026, at the release version shown here. Original verification report

Neal McBurnett’s openai-math-lean-tooling

How they ran it, in their words

Each challenge’s solution is built and checked by Comparator at the pinned release, on Lean leanprover/lean4:v4.34.1, recording the verdict, the check time and the peak memory; the run was still in progress at this snapshot (192 accepted, 224 pending).

Accepted Their term: “accepted”.
Re-run through Comparator with Lean’s kernel: accepted (the check took 476 s; peak memory 6.6 GiB).
Reported 11 October 2026, at the release version shown here. Original verification report

What an accepted Comparator run would establish

If Comparator is run under this configuration and accepts, the solution proves the configured theorem using only the allowed axioms, and the Lean kernel accepts every step.

This configuration lists no definition holes, so every definition the statement uses is compared as it is written in this file.

Allowed axioms: propext, Quot.sound, Classical.choice

Acceptance leaves open whether the Lean statement means the same thing as the paper’s theorem, whether the paper’s other claims are correct, and whether the result is new. Those questions require comparing the definitions and statements, reviewing the paper’s arguments, and reading the earlier literature.

Do family 108’s Lean statements express the advertised result?

These assessments compare all the family’s Lean statements with the whole result OpenAI describes in its catalogue. They do not assess this statement alone. Each group uses its own published rules.

MathVet and cert-machine agree on how much of the advertised result the Lean statements express.

MathVet
Finds the whole advertised result stated or implied Their term: “full”.
The challenge statements imply the headline claim after unpacking definitions or one routine step. Their record
Their note: None; the algebraic-branching-program consequences are not stated (docs). Border complexity is encoded as sequential coefficientwise limits (equivalent to Zariski closure here).
Carlos Toledo’s cert-machine
Finds the whole advertised result stated or implied Their term: “MATCHES”.
The challenge statements state the headline as OpenAI wrote it. Their record

Read the complete assessments on the family page.

OpenAI’s own note on what this Lean statement covers

“The formalization proves a cubic lower bound for both exact and border determinantal representations of the complex $m\times m$ permanent. For $m\ge1408$, every affine-linear determinant representation of size $n$, including coefficientwise limits, satisfies $n\ge m^3/(5529600e)$.”
Quoted from OpenAI’s Lean note for this family

An AI agent drafted an interpretation of that note, classifying this statement as “states a paper’s theorem as the paper does”. No human review of the draft is recorded.

Supporting material

The complete Lean statement file

42 lines, copied from release version fd4aeeb. A name defined in this file links to its line; pointing at the name shows its definition.

Declared in this fileOther linked names open the current documentation for Mathlib, Lean’s mathematical library.

Links in the file: 11 to its own declarations, 36 to Mathlib’s documentation. 1 identifier stays plain because it resolves to no single declaration: a variable Lean binds automatically, notation, or a name the scan of the pinned sources did not find. OpenAI uses Mathlib version d13f23b. The linked documentation describes the current version, so names that have since changed may be missing there.

Definitions and lemmas named by the statement

If Comparator accepts a proof, it proves permanent_cubic_lower_bounds exactly as written here. To compare that statement with the paper, also read the definitions and lemmas listed below. Atlas found them by following names in the source text and lists each after the names it uses. For x.foo, Atlas includes every foo defined here for a type, even when the statement may use only one of them.

It reaches all 6 other declarations of the file; with the theorem itself they span 24 lines. 3 of them are named in the statement itself.

Names in the namespace OAI.PermanentBorder are listed without it.

abbrev Variablesline 10
abbrev Polyline 11
def permanentPolynomialline 13in the statement
def affineMatrixPolynomialline 16
def HasBorderDeterminantline 22in the statement
def HasExactDeterminantline 29in the statement
theorem permanent_cubic_lower_boundsline 33selected theorem

import Mathlibnamespace OAInamespace PermanentBorderopen Filteropen scoped Topologyabbrev Variables (m : ℕ) := Fin m × Fin mabbrev Poly (σ : Type*) := MvPolynomial σ ℂnoncomputable def permanentPolynomial (m : ℕ) : Poly (Variables m) :=  ∑ τ : Equiv.Perm (Fin m), ∏ i : Fin m, MvPolynomial.X (i, τ i)noncomputable def affineMatrixPolynomial {σ : Type*} [Fintype σ] (n : ℕ)    (A₀ : Matrix (Fin n) (Fin n) ℂ)    (A : σ → Matrix (Fin n) (Fin n) ℂ) : Poly σ :=  Matrix.det (fun i j => MvPolynomial.C (A₀ i j) +    ∑ v : σ, MvPolynomial.C (A v i j) * MvPolynomial.X v)def HasBorderDeterminant {σ : Type*} [Fintype σ] (n : ℕ) (p : Poly σ) : Prop :=  0 < n ∧ ∃ (A₀ : ℕ → Matrix (Fin n) (Fin n) ℂ)    (A : ℕ → σ → Matrix (Fin n) (Fin n) ℂ),    ∀ d : σ →₀ ℕ, Tendsto      (fun j => (affineMatrixPolynomial n (A₀ j) (A j)).coeff d)      atTop (𝓝 (p.coeff d))def HasExactDeterminant {σ : Type*} [Fintype σ] (n : ℕ) (p : Poly σ) : Prop :=  0 < n ∧ ∃ (A₀ : Matrix (Fin n) (Fin n) ℂ)    (A : σ → Matrix (Fin n) (Fin n) ℂ), affineMatrixPolynomial n A₀ A = ptheorem permanent_cubic_lower_bounds :    (∀ (m n : ℕ), 1408 ≤ m → HasBorderDeterminant n (permanentPolynomial m) →      (m : ℝ)^3 / (5529600 * Real.exp 1) ≤ (n : ℝ)) ∧    (∀ (m n : ℕ), 1408 ≤ m → HasExactDeterminant n (permanentPolynomial m) →      (m : ℝ)^3 / (5529600 * Real.exp 1) ≤ (n : ℝ)) := by  sorryend PermanentBorderend OAI

Every extracted statement of the accompanying papers

The statements the atlas extracted automatically from each accompanying paper’s TeX source, with links to the full sources.

A cubic lower bound for border determinantal complexity of the permanent

Theorem

There exist absolute constants c>0 and m_0 such that, for every integer m\ge m_0,

\bdc(\per_m)\ge c m^3.

One may take c=1/(5\,529\,600e) and m_0=1408.

Section 1, Introduction Read it in the paper TeX source, line 41

Show the TeX

There exist absolute constants $c>0$ and $m_0$ such that, for every integer
$m\ge m_0$,
\[
 \bdc(\per_m)\ge c m^3.
\]
One may take $c=1/(5\,529\,600e)$ and $m_0=1408$.

Configuration and file facts

File: lean/ComparatorChallenges/PermanentCubic.lean
OpenAI’s Lean catalogue: OpenAI’s Lean catalogue does not list this as a main result; the release’s Lean notes for family 108 link it.
Solution module: OAI.Algebra.Determinantal.Main
Allowed axioms: propext, Quot.sound, Classical.choiceThe axioms this configuration allows a proof to use. A replay shows which of them a proof uses.
Imports: Mathlib
Imports from outside Mathlib: None
Local vocabulary: 6 local vocabulary declarations
Lines of Lean, without comments or blank lines: 24
Second proof-verification program (nanoda): Off in OpenAI's configuration.

A shareable summary of this page: the proposed paper match, what the Lean statement expresses, and which reviews are recorded.

Plectis Atlas