Narrow Proofs May Be Maximally Long

We prove that there are 3-CNF formulas over n variables that can be refuted in resolution in width w but require resolution proofs of size n^Omega(w). This shows that the simple counting argument that any formula refutable in width w must have a proof in size n^O(w) is essentially tight. Moreover, our lower bound generalizes to polynomial calculus resolution (PCR) and Sherali-Adams, implying that the corresponding size upper bounds in terms of degree and rank are tight as well. Our results do not extend all the way to Lasserre, however, where the formulas we study have proofs of constant rank and size polynomial in both n and w

Size bounds for algebraic and semialgebraic proof systems

This thesis concerns the proof complexity of algebraic and semialgebraic proof systems Polynomial Calculus, Sums-of-Squares and Sherali-Adams. The most studied complexity measure for these systems is the degree of the proofs. This thesis concentrates on other possible complexity measures of interest to proof complexity, monomial-size and bit-complexity. We aim to showcase that there is a reasonably well-behaved theory for these measures also. Firstly we tie the complexity measures of degree and monomial size together by proving a size-degree trade-off for Sums-of-Squares and Sherali-Adams. We show that if there is a refutation with at most s many monomials, then there is a refutation whose degree is of order square root of n log s plus k, where k is the maximum degree of the constraints and n is the number of variables. For Polynomial Calculus similar trade-off was obtained earlier by Impagliazzo, Pudlák and Sgall. Secondly we prove a feasible interpolation property for all three systems. We show that for each system there is a polynomial time algorithm that given two sets P(x,z) and Q(y,z) of polynomial constraints in disjoint sequences x,y and z of variables, a refutation of the union of P(x,z) and Q(y,z), and an assignment a to the z-variables, finds either a refutation of P(x,a) or a refutation of Q(y,a). Finally we consider the relation between monomial-size and bit-complexity in Polynomial Calculus and Sums-of-Squares. We show that there is an unsatisfiable set of polynomial constraints that has both Polynomial Calculus and Sums-of-Squares refutations of polynomial monomial-size, but for which any Polynomial Calculus or Sums-of-Squares refutation requires exponential bit-complexity. Besides the emphasis on complexity measures other than degree, another unifying theme in all the three results is the use of semantic characterizations of resource-bounded proofs and refutations. All results make heavy use of the completeness properties of such characterizations. All in all, the work on these semantic characterizations presents itself as the fourth central contribution of this thesis.Aquesta tesi tracta de la complexitat de les proves en els sistemes de prova algebraics i semialgebraics Càlcul Polinomial (Polynomial Calculus), Sumes de Quadrats (Sums of Squares), i Sherali-Adams. La mesura de complexitat més estudiada per a aquests sistemes és el grau dels polinomis. Aquesta tesi se centra en altres possibles mesures de complexitat d'interès per a la complexitat de proves: el nombre de monomis i la longitud de representació en nombre de bits. Pretenem demostrar que aquestes mesures admeten una teoria comparable i complementària a la teoria del grau com a mesura de complexitat. En primer lloc, establim una relació entre les mesures de grau i de nombre de monomis demostrant una propietat d'intercanvi (trade-off) entre les dues mesures per als sistemes Sumes de Quadrats i Sherali-Adams. Demostrem que si hi ha una refutació amb com a màxim s monomis, aleshores hi ha una refutació el grau de la qual és d'ordre de l'arrel quadrada de n.log(s) més k, on k és el grau màxim de les restriccions i n és el nombre de variables. Per al Càlcul Polinomial, una propietat d'intercanvi similar va ser obtinguda per Impagliazzo, Pudlák i Sgall. En segon lloc, demostrem que els tres sistemes admeten la propietat d'interpolació eficient. Mostrem que, per a cadascun dels sistemes, hi ha un algorisme de temps polinomial que, donat dos conjunts P(x,z) i Q(y,z) de restriccions polinomials en successions disjuntes de variables x, y i z, donada una refutació de la unió de les restriccions de P(x,z) i Q(y,z), i donada una assignació per a les variables z, troba una refutació de P(x,a) o una refutació de Q(y,a). Finalment considerem la relació entre el nombre de monomis i la longitud de representació en bits per al Càlcul Polinomial i per a Sumes de Quadrats. Mostrem que hi ha un conjunt insatisfactible de restriccions polinomials que admet refutacions tant en Càlcul Polinomial com en Sumes de Quadrats amb un nombre polinòmic de monomis, però per a les quals qualsevol refutació en Càlcul Polinomial o en Sumes de Quadrats requereix complexitat en nombre de bits exponencial. A més de l'èmfasi en les mesures de complexitat diferents del grau, un altre tema unificador en els tres resultats és l'ús de certes caracteritzacions semàntiques de proves i refutacions limitades en recursos. Tots els resultats fan un ús clau de la propietat de completesa d'aquestes caracteritzacions. Amb tot, el treball sobre aquestes caracteritzacions semàntiques es presenta com la quarta aportació central d'aquesta tesi.Postprint (published version

Definable ellipsoid method, sums-of-squares proofs, and the isomorphism problem

The ellipsoid method is an algorithm that solves the (weak) feasibility and linear optimization problems for convex sets by making oracle calls to their (weak) separation problem. We observe that the previously known method for showing that this reduction can be done in fixed-point logic with counting (FPC) for linear and semidefinite programs applies to any family of explicitly bounded convex sets. We use this observation to show that the exact feasibility problem for semidefinite programs is expressible in the infinitary version of FPC. As a corollary we get that, for the graph isomorphism problem, the Lasserre/Sums-of-Squares semidefinite programming hierarchy of relaxations collapses to the Sherali-Adams linear programming hierarchy, up to a small loss in the degree. © 2018 ACM.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Definable Ellipsoid Method, Sums-of-Squares Proofs, and the Isomorphism Problem

The ellipsoid method is an algorithm that solves the (weak) feasibility and linear optimization problems for convex sets by making oracle calls to their (weak) separation problem. We observe that the previously known method for showing that this reduction can be done in fixed-point logic with counting (FPC) for linear and semidefinite programs applies to any family of explicitly bounded convex sets. We use this observation to show that the exact feasibility problem for semidefinite programs is expressible in the infinitary version of FPC. As a corollary we get that, for the isomorphism problem, the Lasserre/Sums-of-Squares semidefinite programming hierarchy of relaxations collapses to the Sherali-Adams linear programming hierarchy, up to a small loss in the degree

Limitations of Algebraic Approaches to Graph Isomorphism Testing

We investigate the power of graph isomorphism algorithms based on algebraic reasoning techniques like Gr\"obner basis computation. The idea of these algorithms is to encode two graphs into a system of equations that are satisfiable if and only if if the graphs are isomorphic, and then to (try to) decide satisfiability of the system using, for example, the Gr\"obner basis algorithm. In some cases this can be done in polynomial time, in particular, if the equations admit a bounded degree refutation in an algebraic proof systems such as Nullstellensatz or polynomial calculus. We prove linear lower bounds on the polynomial calculus degree over all fields of characteristic different from 2 and also linear lower bounds for the degree of Positivstellensatz calculus derivations. We compare this approach to recently studied linear and semidefinite programming approaches to isomorphism testing, which are known to be related to the combinatorial Weisfeiler-Lehman algorithm. We exactly characterise the power of the Weisfeiler-Lehman algorithm in terms of an algebraic proof system that lies between degree-k Nullstellensatz and degree-k polynomial calculus

The Power of Negative Reasoning

Semialgebraic proof systems have been studied extensively in proof complexity since the late 1990s to understand the power of Gröbner basis computations, linear and semidefinite programming hierarchies, and other methods. Such proof systems are defined alternately with only the original variables of the problem and with special formal variables for positive and negative literals, but there seems to have been no study how these different definitions affect the power of the proof systems. We show for Nullstellensatz, polynomial calculus, Sherali-Adams, and sums-of-squares that adding formal variables for negative literals makes the proof systems exponentially stronger, with respect to the number of terms in the proofs. These separations are witnessed by CNF formulas that are easy for resolution, which establishes that polynomial calculus, Sherali-Adams, and sums-of-squares cannot efficiently simulate resolution without having access to variables for negative literals

Proof Complexity Meets Algebra

We analyse how the standard reductions between constraint satisfaction problems affect their proof complexity. We show that, for the most studied propositional and semi-algebraic proof systems, the classical constructions of pp-interpretability, homomorphic equivalence and addition of constants to a core preserve the proof complexity of the CSP. As a result, for those proof systems, the classes of constraint languages for which small unsatisfiability certificates exist can be characterised algebraically. We illustrate our results by a gap theorem saying that a constraint language either has resolution refutations of bounded width, or does not have bounded-depth Frege refutations of subexponential size. The former holds exactly for the widely studied class of constraint languages of bounded width. This class is also known to coincide with the class of languages with Sums-of-Squares refutations of sublinear degree, a fact for which we provide an alternative proof. We hence ask for the existence of a natural proof system with good behaviour with respect to reductions and simultaneously small size refutations beyond bounded width. We give an example of such a proof system by showing that bounded-degree Lovasz-Schrijver satisfies both requirements

The Complexity of Some Geometric Proof Systems

In this Thesis we investigate proof systems based on Integer Linear Programming. These methods inspect the solution space of an unsatisfiable propositional formula and prove that this space contains no integral points. We begin by proving some size and depth lower bounds for a recent proof system, Stabbing Planes, and along the way introduce some novel methods for doing so. We then turn to the complexity of propositional contradictions generated uniformly from first order sentences, in Stabbing Planes and Sum-Of-Squares. We finish by investigating the complexity-theoretic impact of the choice of method of generating these propositional contradictions in Sherali-Adams