Shannon capacity of the pentagon

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shannon_capacity_pentagon

Submitter: Kim Morrison.

Notes: Lovász's computation: the Shannon capacity of the five-cycle C₅ is √5. The helpers IsIndependent, independenceNumber, strongPower, and HasShannonCapacity encode the capacity as the limit of (α(Gᵏ))^{1/k}, modelling length-k words as Fin k → V. Mathlib has finite simple graphs and cycle graphs but no Shannon capacity, strong graph powers, Lovász theta number, or the semidefinite-programming bound. Category-(b) candidate.

Source: Knill, *Some fundamental theorems in mathematics*, §238.

Informal solution: Lovász's theta-function argument. Lower bound: the strong square C₅⊠C₅ has an independent set of size 5 (e.g. {(0,0),(1,2),(2,4),(3,1),(4,3)}), so α(C₅⊠C₅) ≥ 5, giving capacity ≥ √5. Upper bound: the Lovász number ϑ is multiplicative under the strong product and satisfies α(G) ≤ ϑ(G), so the capacity Θ(G) = lim (α(Gᵏ))^{1/k} ≤ ϑ(G); computing ϑ(C₅) = √5 (via the umbrella/orthonormal-representation construction, or the eigenvalue bound for vertex-transitive graphs) gives capacity ≤ √5. The two bounds coincide at √5.

theorem declaration uses `sorry`shannon_capacity_pentagon : HasShannonCapacity (SimpleGraph.cycleGraph 5) (Real.sqrt 5) := HasShannonCapacity (SimpleGraph.cycleGraph 5) 5 All goals completed! 🐙

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