Abstract

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.

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