597 research outputs found
Space complexity in polynomial calculus
During the last decade, an active line of research in proof complexity has been to study space
complexity and time-space trade-offs for proofs. Besides being a natural complexity measure of
intrinsic interest, space is also an important issue in SAT solving, and so research has mostly focused
on weak systems that are used by SAT solvers.
There has been a relatively long sequence of papers on space in resolution, which is now reasonably
well understood from this point of view. For other natural candidates to study, however, such as
polynomial calculus or cutting planes, very little has been known. We are not aware of any nontrivial
space lower bounds for cutting planes, and for polynomial calculus the only lower bound has been
for CNF formulas of unbounded width in [Alekhnovich et al. ’02], where the space lower bound is
smaller than the initial width of the clauses in the formulas. Thus, in particular, it has been consistent
with current knowledge that polynomial calculus could be able to refute any k-CNF formula in
constant space.
In this paper, we prove several new results on space in polynomial calculus (PC), and in the
extended proof system polynomial calculus resolution (PCR) studied in [Alekhnovich et al. ’02]:
1. We prove an Ω(n) space lower bound in PC for the canonical 3-CNF version of the pigeonhole
principle formulas PHPm
n with m pigeons and n holes, and show that this is tight.
2. For PCR, we prove an Ω(n) space lower bound for a bitwise encoding of the functional pigeonhole
principle. These formulas have width O(log n), and hence this is an exponential
improvement over [Alekhnovich et al. ’02] measured in the width of the formulas.
3. We then present another encoding of the pigeonhole principle that has constant width, and
prove an Ω(n) space lower bound in PCR for these formulas as well.
4. Finally, we prove that any k-CNF formula can be refuted in PC in simultaneous exponential
size and linear space (which holds for resolution and thus for PCR, but was not obviously
the case for PC). We also characterize a natural class of CNF formulas for which the space
complexity in resolution and PCR does not change when the formula is transformed into 3-CNF
in the canonical way, something that we believe can be useful when proving PCR space lower
bounds for other well-studied formula families in proof complexity
Tree resolution proofs of the weak pigeon-hole principle.
We prove that any optimal tree resolution proof of PHPn m is of size 2&thetas;(n log n), independently from m, even if it is infinity. So far, only a 2Ω(n) lower bound has been known in the general case. We also show that any, not necessarily optimal, regular tree resolution proof PHPn m is bounded by 2O(n log m). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time the worst case proof complexity has been considered. Finally, we discuss possible connections of our result to Riis' (1999) complexity gap theorem for tree resolution
Parameterized bounded-depth Frege is not optimal
A general framework for parameterized proof complexity was introduced by Dantchev, Martin, and Szeider [9]. There the authors concentrate on tree-like Parameterized Resolution-a parameterized version of classical Resolution-and their gap complexity theorem implies lower bounds for that system. The main result of the present paper significantly improves upon this by showing optimal lower bounds for a parameterized version of bounded-depth Frege. More precisely, we prove that the pigeonhole principle requires proofs of size n in parameterized bounded-depth Frege, and, as a special case, in dag-like Parameterized Resolution. This answers an open question posed in [9]. In the opposite direction, we interpret a well-known technique for FPT algorithms as a DPLL procedure for Parameterized Resolution. Its generalization leads to a proof search algorithm for Parameterized Resolution that in particular shows that tree-like Parameterized Resolution allows short refutations of all parameterized contradictions given as bounded-width CNF's
Some subsystems of constant-depth Frege with parity
We consider three relatively strong families of subsystems of AC0[2]-Frege proof systems, i.e., propositional proof systems using constant-depth formulas with an additional parity connective, for which exponential lower bounds on proof size are known. In order of increasing strength, the subsystems are (i) constant-depth proof systems with parity axioms and the (ii) treelike and (iii) daglike versions of systems introduced by KrajĂÄŤek which we call PKcd(⊕). In a PKcd(⊕)-proof, lines are disjunctions (cedents) in which all disjuncts have depth at most d, parities can only appear as the outermost connectives of disjuncts, and all but c disjuncts contain no parity connective at all.
We prove that treelike PKO(1)O(1)(⊕) is quasipolynomially but not polynomially equivalent to constant-depth systems with parity axioms. We also verify that the technique for separating parity axioms from parity connectives due to Impagliazzo and Segerlind can be adapted to give a superpolynomial separation between daglike PKO(1)O(1)(⊕) and AC0[2]-Frege; the technique is inherently unable to prove superquasipolynomial separations.
We also study proof systems related to the system Res-Lin introduced by Itsykson and Sokolov. We prove that an extension of treelike Res-Lin is polynomially simulated by a system related to daglike PKO(1)O(1)(⊕), and obtain an exponential lower bound for this system.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft
On the proof complexity of Paris-harrington and off-diagonal ramsey tautologies
We study the proof complexity of Paris-Harrington’s Large Ramsey Theorem for bi-colorings of graphs and
of off-diagonal Ramsey’s Theorem. For Paris-Harrington, we prove a non-trivial conditional lower bound
in Resolution and a non-trivial upper bound in bounded-depth Frege. The lower bound is conditional on a
(very reasonable) hardness assumption for a weak (quasi-polynomial) Pigeonhole principle in RES(2). We
show that under such an assumption, there is no refutation of the Paris-Harrington formulas of size quasipolynomial
in the number of propositional variables. The proof technique for the lower bound extends the
idea of using a combinatorial principle to blow up a counterexample for another combinatorial principle
beyond the threshold of inconsistency. A strong link with the proof complexity of an unbalanced off-diagonal
Ramsey principle is established. This is obtained by adapting some constructions due to Erdos and Mills. Ëť
We prove a non-trivial Resolution lower bound for a family of such off-diagonal Ramsey principles
Resolution Trees with Lemmas: Resolution Refinements that Characterize DLL Algorithms with Clause Learning
Resolution refinements called w-resolution trees with lemmas (WRTL) and with
input lemmas (WRTI) are introduced. Dag-like resolution is equivalent to both
WRTL and WRTI when there is no regularity condition. For regular proofs, an
exponential separation between regular dag-like resolution and both regular
WRTL and regular WRTI is given.
It is proved that DLL proof search algorithms that use clause learning based
on unit propagation can be polynomially simulated by regular WRTI. More
generally, non-greedy DLL algorithms with learning by unit propagation are
equivalent to regular WRTI. A general form of clause learning, called
DLL-Learn, is defined that is equivalent to regular WRTL.
A variable extension method is used to give simulations of resolution by
regular WRTI, using a simplified form of proof trace extensions. DLL-Learn and
non-greedy DLL algorithms with learning by unit propagation can use variable
extensions to simulate general resolution without doing restarts.
Finally, an exponential lower bound for WRTL where the lemmas are restricted
to short clauses is shown
Random Resolution Refutations
We study the random resolution refutation system definedin [Buss et al. 2014]. This attempts to capture the notion of a resolution refutation that may make mistakes but is correct most of the time. By proving the equivalence of several different definitions, we show that this concept is robust. On the other hand, if P does not equal NP, then random resolution cannot be polynomially simulated by any proof system in which correctness of proofs is checkable in polynomial time.
We prove several upper and lower bounds on the width and size of random resolution refutations of explicit and random unsatisfiable CNF formulas. Our main result is a separation between polylogarithmic width random resolution and quasipolynomial size resolution, which solves the problem stated in [Buss et al. 2014]. We also prove exponential size lower bounds on random resolution refutations of the pigeonhole principle CNFs, and of a family of CNFs which have polynomial size refutations in constant depth Frege
- …