English

Towards P$\ne$NP from Extended Frege lower bounds

Logic 2023-12-14 v1

Abstract

We prove that if conditions I-II (below) hold and there is a sequence of Boolean functions fnf_n hard to approximate by p-size circuits such that p-size circuit lower bounds for fnf_n do not have p-size proofs in Extended Frege system EF, then PNPP\ne NP. I. S21S^1_2 proves that a concrete function in E{\sf E} is hard to approximate by subexponential-size circuits. II. [Learning from ¬\neg\exists OWF.] S21S^1_2 proves that a p-time reduction transforms circuits breaking one-way functions to p-size circuits learning p-size circuits over the uniform distribution, with membership queries. Here, S21S^1_2 is Buss's theory of bounded arithmetic formalizing p-time reasoning. Further, we show that any of the following assumptions implies that PNPP\ne NP, if EF is not p-bounded: 1. [Feasible anticheckers.] S21S^1_2 proves that a p-time function generates anticheckers for SAT. 2. [Witnessing NP⊈P/polyNP\not\subseteq P/poly.] S21S^1_2 proves that a p-time function witnesses an error of each p-size circuit which fails to solve SAT. 3. [OWF from NP⊈P/polyNP\not\subseteq P/poly &\& hardness of E{\sf E}.] Condition I holds and S21S^1_2 proves that a p-time reduction transforms circuits breaking one-way functions to p-size circuits computing SAT. The results generalize to stronger theories and proof systems.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2312.08163,
  title  = {Towards P$\ne$NP from Extended Frege lower bounds},
  author = {Jan Pich and Rahul Santhanam},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2312.08163},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2111.10626