Related papers: $P \ne NP$, propositional proof complexity, and re…
We prove lower bounds for proofs of the bit pigeonhole principle (BPHP) and its generalizations in bounded-depth resolution over parities (Res$(\oplus)$). For weak BPHP$_n^m$ with $m = cn$ pigeons (for any constant $c>1$) and $n$ holes, for…
The Pigeonhole Principle (PHP) has been heavily studied in automated reasoning, both theoretically and in practice. Most solvers have exponential runtime and proof length, while some specialized techniques achieve polynomial runtime and…
We develop and study the complexity of propositional proof systems of varying strength extending resolution by allowing it to operate with disjunctions of linear equations instead of clauses. We demonstrate polynomial-size refutations for…
We prove, under a computational complexity hypothesis, that it is consistent with the true universal theory of p-time algorithms that a specific p-time function extending $n$ bits to $m \geq n^2$ bits violates the dual weak pigeonhole…
It is well known that S^1_2 cannot prove the injective weak pigeonhole principle for polynomial time functions unless RSA is insecure. In this note we investigate the provability of the surjective (dual) weak pigeonhole principle in S^1_2…
The reflection principle is the statement that if a sentence is provable then it is true. Reflection principles have been studied for first-order theories, but they also play an important role in propositional proof complexity. In this…
We investigate the proof complexity of a class of propositional formulas expressing a combinatorial principle known as the Kneser-Lov\'{a}sz Theorem. This is a family of propositional tautologies, indexed by an nonnegative integer parameter…
We prove an $\Omega(n^{1-1/k} \log k \ /2^k)$ lower bound on the $k$-party number-in-hand communication complexity of collision-finding. This implies a $2^{n^{1-o(1)}}$ lower bound on the size of tree-like cutting-planes proofs of the bit…
The infinite pigeonhole principle for 2-partitions asserts the existence, for every set $A$, of an infinite subset of $A$ or of its complement. In this paper, we develop a new notion of forcing enabling a fine analysis of the…
For any unsatisfiable CNF formula we give an exponential lower bound on the size of resolution refutations of a propositional statement that the formula has a resolution refutation. We describe three applications. (1) An open question in…
Haken proved that every resolution refutation of the pigeonhole formula has at least exponential size. Groote and Zantema proved that a particular OBDD computation of the pigeonhole formula has an exponential size. Here we show that any…
We give elementary proof that theory $T^1_2(R)$ augmented by the weak pigeonhole principle for all $\Delta^b_1(R)$-definable relations does not prove the bijective pigeonhole principle for $R$. This can be derived from known more general…
We study propositional proof systems with inference rules that formalize restricted versions of the ability to make assumptions that hold without loss of generality, commonly used informally to shorten proofs. Each system we study is built…
We study the problem of obtaining lower bounds for polynomial calculus (PC) and polynomial calculus resolution (PCR) on proof degree, and hence by [Impagliazzo et al. '99] also on proof size. [Alekhnovich and Razborov '03] established that…
In this work, we study the discrete logarithm problem in the context of TFNP - the complexity class of search problems with a syntactically guaranteed existence of a solution for all instances. Our main results establish that suitable…
The pigeonhole principle states that if $n$ items are contained in $m$ boxes, then at least one box has no more than $n / m$ items. It is utilized to solve many data management problems, especially for thresholded similarity searches.…
We consider a special case of Dickson's lemma: for any two functions $f,g$ on the natural numbers there are two numbers $i<j$ such that both $f$ and $g$ weakly increase on them, i.e., $f_i\le f_j$ and $g_i \le g_j$. By a combinatorial…
We study Frege proofs for the one-to-one graph Pigeon Hole Principle defined on the $n\times n$ grid where $n$ is odd. We are interested in the case where each formula in the proof is a depth $d$ formula in the basis given by $\land$,…
We study the complexity of computational problems arising from existence theorems in extremal combinatorics. For some of these problems, a solution is guaranteed to exist based on an iterated application of the Pigeonhole Principle. This…
We show that the problem of finding a Resolution refutation that is at most polynomially longer than a shortest one is NP-hard. In the parlance of proof complexity, Resolution is not automatizable unless P = NP. Indeed, we show it is…