This paper introduces a logical system, called BV, which extends multiplicative linear logic by a non-commutative self-dual logical operator. This extension is particularly challenging for the sequent calculus, and so far it is not achieved therein. It becomes very natural in a new formalism, called the calculus of structures, which is the main contribution of this work. Structures are formulae subject to certain equational laws typical of sequents. The calculus of structures is obtained by generalising the sequent calculus in such a way that a new top-down symmetry of derivations is observed, and it employs inference rules that rewrite inside structures at any depth. These properties, in addition to allowing the design of BV, yield a modular proof of cut elimination.

The calculus of structures is a framework for specifying logical systems, which is similar to the one-sided sequent calculus but more general. We present a system of inference rules for propositional classical logic in this new framework and prove cut elimination for it. The system enjoys a decomposition theorem for derivations that is not available in the sequent calculus. The main novelty of our system is that all the rules are local : contraction, in particular, is reduced to atomic form. This should be interesting for distributed proof-search and also for complexity theory, since the computational cost of applying each rule is bounded.

A strict correspondence between the proof-search space of a logical formal system and computations in a simple process algebra is established. Sewuential

abstract. The family of normal propositional modal logic systems is given a very systematic organisation by their model theory. This model theory is generally given using frame semantics, and it is systematic in the sense that for the most important systems we have a clean, exact correspondence between their constitutive axioms as they are usually given in a Hilbert-Lewis style and conditions on the accessibility relation on frames. By contrast, the usual structural proof theory of modal logic, as given in Gentzen systems, is ad-hoc. While we can formulate several modal logics in the sequent calculus that enjoy cut-elimination, their formalisation arises through system-bysystem fine tuning to ensure that the cut-elimination holds, and the correspondence to the axioms of the Hilbert-Lewis systems becomes opaque. This paper introduces a systematic presentation for the systems K, D, M, S4, and S5 in the calculus of structures, a structural proof theory that employs deep inference. Because of this, we are able to axiomatise the modal logics in a manner directly analogous to the Hilbert-Lewis axiomatisation. We show that the calculus possesses a cut-elimination property directly analogous to cut-elimination for the sequent calculus for these systems, and we discuss the extension to several other modal logics. 1

We see a systematic set of cut-free axiomatisations for all the basic normal modal logics formed by some combination the axioms d,t,b,4, 5. They employ a form of deep inference but otherwise stay very close to Gentzen’s sequent calculus, in particular they enjoy a subformula property in the literal sense. No semantic notions are used inside the proof systems, in particular there is no use of labels. All their rules are invertible and the rules cut, weakening and contraction are admissible. All systems admit a straightforward terminating proof search procedure as well as a syntactic cut elimination procedure.

We obtain two results about the proof complexity of deep inference: 1) deep-inference proof systems are as powerful as Frege ones, even when both are extended with the Tseitin extension rule or with the substitution rule; 2) there are analytic deep-inference proof systems that exhibit an exponential speed-up over analytic Gentzen proof systems that they polynomially simulate.

Vol. 2 (4:3) 2006, pp. 1–44 www.lmcs-online.org

We present a theory of proof denotations in classical propositional logic. The abstract definition is in terms of a semiring of weights, and two concrete instances are explored. With the Boolean semiring we get a theory of classical proof nets, with a geometric correctness criterion, a sequentialization theorem, and a strongly normalizing cut-elimination procedure. This gives us a “Boolean ” category, which is not a poset. With the semiring of natural numbers, we obtain a sound semantics for classical logic, in which fewer proofs are identified. Though a “real” sequentialization theorem is missing, these proof nets have a grip on complexity issues. In both cases the cut elimination procedure is closely related to its equivalent in the calculus of structures.

Abstract. We introduce ‘atomic flows’: they are graphs obtained from derivations by tracing atom occurrences and forgetting the logical structure. We study simple manipulations of atomic flows that correspond to complex reductions on derivations. This allows us to prove, for propositional logic, a new and very general normalisation theorem, which contains cut elimination as a special case. We operate in deep inference, which is more general than other syntactic paradigms, and where normalisation is more difficult to control. We argue that atomic flows are a significant technical advance for normalisation theory, because 1) the technique they support is largely independent of syntax; 2) indeed, it is largely independent of logical inference rules; 3) they constitute a powerful geometric formalism, which is more intuitive than syntax. 1.

The calculus of structures is a proof theoretical formalism which generalizes the sequent calculus with the feature of deep inference: in contrast to the sequent calculus, inference rules can be applied at any depth inside a formula, bringing shorter proofs than all other formalisms supporting analytical proofs. However, deep applicability of inference rules causes greater nondeterminism than in the sequent calculus regarding proof search. In this paper, we introduce a new technique which reduces nondeterminism without breaking proof theoretical properties, and provides a more immediate access to shorter proofs. We present our technique on system BV, the smallest technically non-trivial system in the calculus of structures, extending multiplicative linear logic with the rules mix, nullary mix and a self dual, non-commutative logical operator. Since our technique exploits a scheme common to all the systems in the calculus of structures, we argue that it generalizes to these systems for classical logic, linear logic and modal logics.