Improved Upper Bounds for Slicing the Hypercube

Abstract

A collection of hyperplanes $\mathcal{H}$ slices all edges of the $n$-dimensional hypercube $Q_n$ with vertex set $\{-1,1{\}}^n$ if, for every edge $e$ in the hypercube, there exists a hyperplane in $\mathcal{H}$ intersecting $e$ in its interior. Let $S(n)$ be the minimum number of hyperplanes needed to slice $Q_n$. We prove that $S(n)\le \lceil \frac{4n}{5}\rceil$, except when $n$ is an odd multiple of $5$, in which case $S(n)\le \frac{4n}{5}+1$. This improves upon the previously known upper bound of $S(n)\le \lceil \frac{5n}{6}\rceil$ due to Paterson reported in 1971. We also obtain new lower bounds on the maximum number of edges in $Q_n$ that can be sliced using $k<n$ hyperplanes. We prove the improved upper bound on $S(n)$ by constructing $8$ hyperplanes slicing $Q_{10}$ aided by the recently introduced CPro1: an automatic tool that uses reasoning LLMs coupled with automated hyperparameter tuning to create search algorithms for the discovery of mathematical constructions.