Multicolor Ramsey numbers of odd cycles are superexponential

Abstract

In a recent breakthrough, OpenAI proved that the $k$-color Ramsey number of the triangle $C_3$ grows super-exponentially, more precisely, they proved that $R_k(C_3)\ge k^{k/3-o(k)}$. In this short note, we present a modification of their recursive construction that works for multicolor Ramsey numbers of fixed odd cycles. More precisely, for $p\ge 1$, let $\mathcal{O}_p=\{C_3,C_5,\ldots,C_{2p+1}\}$. We show that \[ R_k(\mathcal{O}_p)\ge (\log^{(p-1)}k)^{k/3-o(k)} \] for every fixed $p$, where $\log^{(p-1)}$ denotes the $(p-1)$-fold iterated logarithm. This immediately implies that for every fixed odd cycle, the multicolor Ramsey number is superexponential in the number of colors. The presented proof was found autonomously by ChatGPT 5.6 Pro/Sol.

12 pages