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A Logspace Constructive Proof of L=SL

Published: November 15, 2025 | arXiv ID: 2511.12011v1

By: Sam Buss , Anant Dhayal , Valentine Kabanets and more

Potential Business Impact:

Proves computers can solve harder problems faster.

Business Areas:
Quantum Computing Science and Engineering

We formalize the proof of Reingold's Theorem that SL=L [Rei05] in the theory of bounded arithmetic VL, which corresponds to ``logspace reasoning''. As a consequence, we get that VL=VSL, where VSL is the theory of bounded arithmetic for ``symmetric-logspace reasoning''. This resolves in the affirmative an old open question from Kolokolova [Kol05] (see also Cook-Nguyen [NC10]). Our proof relies on the Rozenman-Vadhan alternative proof of Reingold's Theorem ([RV05]). To formalize this proof in VL, we need to avoid reasoning about eigenvalues and eigenvectors (common in both original proofs of SL=L). We achieve this by using some results from Buss-Kabanets-Kolokolova-Koucký [Bus+20] that allow VL to reason about graph expansion in combinatorial terms.

Page Count
39 pages

Category
Computer Science:
Logic in Computer Science