Nash Equilibria for Finite Games in Isabelle/HOL

Arthur Freitas Ramos 📧, David Barros Hulak 📧 and Ruy Jose Guerra Barretto de Queiroz 📧

May 7, 2026

Abstract

This development formalizes Nash equilibria for finite strategic form games, following Nash’s equilibrium concept [5, 4]. It gives reusable definitions of profiles, unilateral deviations, best responses, dominant strategies, and pure Nash equilibria; proves existence for finite ordinal potential games [3] and games with dominant strategies; and verifies matching pennies as a finite game with no pure Nash equilibrium. It also formalizes mixed-strategy profiles for finite games, support lem mas for equilibrium strategies, Dirac embeddings of pure profiles, and the existence of a mixed Nash equilibrium using Brouwer’s fixed point theorem. Worked examples cover the Prisoner’s Dilemma, a coordina tion game, matching pennies, and rock-paper-scissors. AI assistance was used for proof engineering. The final definitions, statements, and proofs are checked by Isabelle.

License

BSD License

Note

Codex with gpt 5.5 on xhigh reasoning was used to help with proof engineering.

Topics

Session Nash_Equilibrium