Lower bounds to the size of constant-depth propositional proofs

Abstract

AbstractLK is a natural modification of Gentzen sequent calculus for propositional logic with connectives ¬ and ∧,∨ (both of bounded arity). Then for every d ≥ 0 and n ≥ 2, there is a set of depth d sequents of total size O(n3+d) which are refutable in LK by depth d + 1 proof of size exp(O(log2n)) but such that every depth d refutation must have the size at least exp(nΩ(1)). The sets express a weaker form of the pigeonhole principle.