A new upper bound for 3-SAT

Abstract

We show that a randomly chosen 3-CNF formula over n variables with clauses-tovariables ratio at least 4.4898 is asymptotically almost surely unsatisfiable. The previous best such bound, due to Dubois in 1999, was 4.506. The first such bound, independently discovered by many groups of researchers since 1983, was 5.19. Several decreasing values between 5.19 and 4.506 were published in the years between. The probabilistic techniques we use for the proof are, we believe, of independent interest.