Hybrid languages are expansions of propositional modal languages which can refer to (or even quantify over) worlds. The use of strong hybrid languages dates back to at least [Pri67], but recent work (for example [BS98, BT98a, BT99]) has focussed on a more constrained system called H(#; @). We show in detail that H(#; @) is modally natural. We begin by studying its expressivity, and provide model theoretic characterizations (via a restricted notion of Ehrenfeucht-Frasse game, and an enriched notion of bisimulation) and a syntactic characterization (in terms of bounded formulas). The key result to emerge is that H(#; @) corresponds to the fragment of rst-order logic which is invariant for generated submodels. We then show that H(#; @) enjoys (strong) interpolation, provide counterexamples for its nite variable fragments, and show that weak interpolation holds for the sublanguage H(@). Finally, we provide complexity results for H(@) and other fragments and variants, and sh...

We prove lower bounds of the form exp (n ffl d ) ; ffl d ? 0; on the length of proofs of an explicit sequence of tautologies, based on the Pigeonhole Principle, in proof systems using formulas of depth d; for any constant d: This is the largest lower bound for the strongest proof system, for which any superpolynomial lower bounds are known.

Abstract. Cook and Reckhow defined a propositional formulation of the pigeonhole principle. This paper shows that there are Frege proofs of this propositional pigeonhole principle of polynomial size. This together with a result of Haken gives another proof of Urquhart's theorem that Frege systems have an exponential speedup over resolution. We also discuss connections to provability in theories of bounded arithmetic. $1. Introduction. The motivation for this paper comes primarily from two sources. First, Cook and Reckhow [2] and Statman [7] discussed connections between lengths of proofs in propositional logic and open questions in com-putational complexity such as whether NP = co-NP. Cook and Reckhow used the propositional pigeonhole principle as an example of a family of true formulae which

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

The spectrum of a first-order sentence is the set of cardinalities of its finite models. This paper is concerned with spectra of sentences over languages that contain only unary function symbols. In particular, it is shown that a set S of natural numbers is the spectrum of a sentence over the language of one unary function symbol precisely if S is an eventually periodic set. 1 Introduction The spectrum of a first-order sentence is the set of cardinalities of its finite models. That is, if ' is a first-order sentence, and if n is a natural number, then n is in the spectrum of ' precisely if there is a structure A that satisfies ' where the cardinality of the universe of A is n. The notion of a spectrum was introduced by Scholz [Sc52]. As an example, if ' is a first-order sentence that gives the conjunction of the field axioms (' says that + and \Theta are associative and commutative, that \Theta distributes over +, etc.), then it is well-known that the spectrum of ' is the set of po...

Diophantine Analysis is a very active domain of mathematical research where one finds more conjectures than results. We collect here a number of open questions concerning Diophantine equations (including Pillai’s Conjectures), Diophantine approximation (featuring the abc Conjecture) and transcendental number theory (with, for instance, Schanuel’s Conjecture). Some questions related to Mahler’s measure and Weil absolute logarithmic height are then considered (e. g., Lehmer’s Problem). We also discuss Mazur’s question regarding the density of rational points on a variety, especially in the particular case of algebraic groups, in connexion with transcendence problems in several variables. We say only a few words on metric problems, equidistribution questions, Diophantine approximation on manifolds and Diophantine analysis on function fields.

We show that the known bounded-depth proofs of the Weak Pigeonhole Principle PHP 2n n in size n O(log(n)) are not optimal in terms of size. More precisely, we give a size-depth trade-off upper bound: there are proofs of size n O(d(log(n)) 2=d ) and depth O(d). This solves an open problem of Maciel, Pitassi and Woods (2000). Our technique requires formalizing the ideas underlying Nepomnjascij's Theorem which might be of independent interest. Moreover, our result implies a proof of the unboundedness of primes in I \Delta 0 with a provably weaker `large number assumption' than previously needed.

Arithmetical definability has been extensively studied over the natural numbers. In this paper, we take up the study of arithmetical definability overfinite structures, motivated by the correspondence between uniform AC and FO(PLUS;TIMES). We prove finite analogs of three classic results in arithmetical definability, namely that < and TIMES can first-order define PLUS, that < and DIVIDES can first-order define TIMES, and that < and COPRIME can first-order define TIMES.