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Precise statement
Litvak conjectured in 2018 that for every $p > 0$ the quantity $\mathbb{E}[\min_{i \le n} |g_i|^p]$, for $g \sim \mathcal{N}(0,\Sigma)$, is minimized over $n \times n$ correlation matrices by the Gram matrix of the regular simplex in $\mathbb{R}^{n-1}$. False: the matrix $\Sigma^{\cos}_{ij} = \cos(\pi(i-j)/n)$ already gives a strictly smaller value at $p = 2$, $n = 4$.
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fidelity, correctness, priority, or novelty.
What AI did
AlphaEvolve, GPT-5.5 Pro
Two separate model contributions, and the author keeps them apart. The counterexample itself came out of black-box minimization with AlphaEvolve; what made it usable was the author then recognising a continuous function underneath the numbers and identifying it as the cosine, which turned a numerical optimum into a clean matrix and then into a stronger conjecture. He notes conventional optimizers such as differential evolution and BFGS also produced matrices that would disprove the conjecture, but rarely converged to this one. Separately, GPT-5.5 Pro surfaced the connection to Fejes Toth's zone conjecture, which the author had not known about, while repeatedly producing proofs that leaned on an unsupported step as though it were established. Isolating that step is what produced the volumetric conjecture stated in the paper, so the model's mistake was itself informative.
Reproduced here. For $\Sigma^{\cos}$ with $n = 4$ the matrix has rank two, so $g_i = R\cos(\Theta - \pi i/4)$ with $R^2 \sim \chi^2_2$, giving the closed form $\mathbb{E}[\min_i |g_i|^2] = 1 - 2\sqrt{2}/\pi = 0.0996836838$. The regular-simplex Gram matrix was evaluated by deterministic quadrature over the sphere, stable at $0.1421833$ across grid refinements and corroborated by a 20-million-sample simulation at $0.142238$. The cosine matrix is smaller by about 30 percent, far outside any numerical doubt. arXiv preprint, not peer-reviewed.
arXiv:2605.02023 - A revision of Litvak's conjecture on Gaussian minima and a volumetric zone conjecture
the paper proposes that the cosine matrix is the true minimizer for all p and n, and proves a stronger stochastic domination statement conditional on a new volumetric extension of Fejes Toth's zone conjecture
Known method families
construction (source-reported)
Source-reported tools: construction.
Independent: unknown · difference confidence: 0
What remains uncertain
VibeMath has not independently audited the mathematical statement, proof, or novelty claim.
VibeMath has not independently verified the mathematical claim.
AI-attempt independence and training-data exposure are unknown unless explicitly documented.
VibeMath has not independently audited the mathematical statement, proof, or novelty claim.