It is generally conjectured that there is an exponential separation between Frege and extended Frege systems. This paper reviews and introduces some candidates for families of combinatorial tautologies for which Frege proofs might need to be superpolynomially longer than extended Frege proofs. Surprisingly, we conclude that no particularly good or convincing examples are known. The examples of combinatorial tautologies that we consider seem to give at most a quasipolynomial speed-up of extended Frege proofs over Frege proofs, with the sole possible exception of tautologies based on a theorem of Frankl.

Abstract. Propositional proof complexity is the study of the sizes of propositional proofs, and more generally, the resources necessary to certify propositional tautologies. Questions about proof sizes have connections with computational complexity, theories of arithmetic, and satisfiability algorithms. This is article includes a broad survey of the field, and a technical exposition of some recently developed techniques for proving lower bounds on proof sizes. Contents

This is a survey of basic facts about bounded arithmetic and about the relationships between bounded arithmetic and propositional proof complexity. We introduce the theories S 2 of bounded arithmetic and characterize their proof theoretic strength and their provably total functions in terms of the polynomial time hierarchy. We discuss other axiomatizations of bounded arithmetic, such as minimization axioms. It is shown that the bounded arithmetic hierarchy collapses if and only if bounded arithmetic proves that the polynomial hierarchy collapses. We discuss Frege and extended Frege proof length, and the two translations from bounded arithmetic proofs into propositional proofs. We present some theorems on bounding the lengths of propositional interpolants in terms of cut-free proof length and in terms of the lengths of resolution refutations. We then define the RazborovRudich notion of natural proofs of P NP and discuss Razborov's theorem that certain fragments of bounded arithmetic cannot prove superpolynomial lower bounds on circuit size, assuming a strong cryptographic conjecture. Finally, a complete presentation of a proof of the theorem of Razborov is given. 1 Review of Computational Complexity 1.1 Feasibility This article will be concerned with various "feasible" forms of computability and of provability. For something to be feasibly computable, it must be computable in practice in the real world, not merely e#ectively computable in the sense of being recursively computable.

It is generally conjectured that there is an exponential separation between Frege and extended Frege systems. This paper reviews and introduces some candidates for families of combinatoriM tautologies for which Frege proofs might need to be superpolynomially longer than extended Frege proofs. Surprisingly, we conclude that no particularly good or convincing examples are known. The examples of combinatorial tautologies that we consider seem to give at most a quasipolynomial speed-up of extended Frege proofs over Frege proofs, with the sole possible exception of tautologies based on a theorem of Frankl.

This is a survey of work on proof complexity and proof search, as motivated by the P versus NP problem. We discuss propositional proof complexity, Cook’s program, proof automatizability, proof search, algorithms for satisfiability, and the state of the art of our (in)ability to separate P and NP.