Second-order encoding of three-colorability (${\Phi }_3$)

Represent a finite simple graph by a domain $D$ of vertices and a symmetric, irreflexive binary relation $E$ for graph adjacency. Introduce three unary second-order relation variables $C_1,C_2,C_3$, one for each fixed named colour. Define the following abbreviations for first-order formulas in this expanded first-order signature:Then the existential second-order logic sentenceasserts that every vertex receives exactly one of the three colours and adjacent vertices receive different colours. The first clause gives coverage and pairwise disjointness of the three subsets; the second makes each subset an independent set. Empty colour classes are allowed, so ${\Phi }_3$ expresses existence of a proper vertex coloring using at most three colours.

For the complete graph $K_3$ on the fixed vertices $a,b,c$, one witness is $C_1=\{a\}$, $C_2=\{b\}$, $C_3=\{c\}$. Each vertex satisfies exactly one predicate, and each of the three edges joins different predicates. Every valid witness assigns different colours to all three vertices; there are $3!=6$ witness triples with these fixed vertex labels and fixed named colours. We are counting assignments, without identifying them under colour permutations or graph isomorphisms. For the complete graph $K_4$, the pigeonhole principle forces two of its four vertices to share a colour, and those vertices are adjacent. Thus it has no witness triple. This calculation illustrates a complexity certificate without requiring the reader to reconstruct a machine computation.

Reproduce the diagram by running python ../second-order-coloring-witness.py from the repository's _media directory. The script checks all witness triples for these two complete graphs before drawing them.