We study the question of provability of lower bounds on the complexity of explicitly given Boolean functions in weak fragments of Peano Arithmetic. To that end, we analyze what is the right fragment capturing the kind of techniques existing in Boolean complexity at present. We give both formal and informal arguments supporting the claim that a conceivable answer is V 1 (which, in view of RSUV -isomorphism, is equivalent to S 2 ), although some major results about the complexity of Boolean functions can be proved in (presumably) weaker subsystems like U 1 . As a by-product of this analysis, we give a more constructive version of the proof of Hastad Switching Lemma which probably is interesting in its own right.

We introduce a bounded domain version V 2 (BD) of Buss's second order theory V 2 of bounded arithmetic and show that this version is equivalent to the rst order theory S 3 : More precisely, we construct two natural interpretations V 3 and S 2 (BD) which are inverse to each other and preserve the syntactic structure of bounded formulae. As a corollary, for the bounded domain case we obtain Buss's result concerning 1 -expressibility in V 2 as a direct consequence of his main result for rst order theories. Using only plain corollaries of the cut elimination theorem, we show that V 2 (BD) prove the same formulae where 8 stand for rst order quanti ers. Combined with the above mentioned result this gives an alternative proof of Buss's characterization of 2 functions. All this readily extends to the case V k (BD) vs. S k+1 (i; k 1).

This paper presents a new proof of the characterization of the provably recursive functions of the fragments I# n of Peano arithmetic. The proof method also characterizes the # k -definable functions of I# n and of theories axiomatized by transfinite induction on ordinals. The proofs are completely proof-theoretic and use the method of witness functions and witness oracles.