English

Extended Nullstellensatz proof systems

Logic 2025-09-16 v3 Computational Complexity

Abstract

For a finite set F\cal F of polynomials over fixed finite prime field of size pp containing all polynomials x2xx^2 - x a Nullstellensatz proof of the unsolvability of the system f=0 , \mboxallfF f = 0\ ,\ \mbox{ all } f \in {\cal F} in the field is a linear combination fF hff\sum_{f \in {\cal F}} \ h_f \cdot f that equals to 11 in the ring of polynomails. The measure of complexity of such a proof is its degree: maxfdeg(hff)\max_f deg(h_f f). We study the problem to establish degree lower bounds for some {\em extended} NS proof systems: these systems prove the unsolvability of F\cal F by proving the unsolvability of a bigger set FE{\cal F}\cup {\cal E}, where set E\cal E may use new variables rr and contains all polynomials rprr^p - r, and satisfies the following soundness condition: -- - Any 0,10,1-assignment a\overline a to variables x\overline x can be appended by an assignment b\overline b to variables r\overline r such that for all gEg \in {\cal E} it holds that g(a,b)=0g(\overline a, \overline b) = 0. We define a notion of pseudo-solutions of F\cal F and prove that the existence of pseudo-solutions with suitable parameters implies lower bounds for two extended NS proof systems ENS and UENS defined in Buss et al. (1996/97). Further we give a combinatorial example of F\cal F and candidate pseudo-solutions based on the pigeonhole principle.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2301.10617,
  title  = {Extended Nullstellensatz proof systems},
  author = {Jan Krajicek},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2301.10617},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

Preliminary version January 2023

R2 v1 2026-06-28T08:19:57.858Z