We give a new approach to the fundamental question of whether proof complexity lower bounds for concrete propositional proof systems imply super-polynomial Boolean circuit lower bounds.

For any poly-time computable function $f$, we define the witnessing formulas $w_n^k(f)$, which are propositional formulas stating that for any circuit $C$ of size ... more >>>

Hardness magnification reduces major complexity separations (such as $EXP \not\subseteq NC^1$) to proving lower bounds for some natural problem $Q$ against weak circuit models. Several recent works [OS18, MMW19, CT19, OPS19, CMMW19, Oli19, CJW19a] have established results of this form. In the most intriguing cases, the required lower bound is ... more >>>

This work continues the development of hardness magnification. The latter proposes a strategy for showing strong complexity lower bounds by reducing them to a refined analysis of weaker models, where combinatorial techniques might be successful.

We consider gap versions of the meta-computational problems MKtP and MCSP, where one needs ... more >>>

We ask for feasibly constructive proofs of known circuit lower bounds for explicit functions on bit strings of length $n$. In 1995 Razborov showed that many can be proved in Cook’s theory $PV_1$, a bounded arithmetic formalizing polynomial time reasoning. He formalized circuit lower bound statements for small $n$ of ... more >>>

We aim to understand inherent reasons for lower bounds for QBF proof systems and revisit and compare two previous approaches in this direction.

The first of these relates size lower bounds for strong QBF Frege systems to circuit lower bounds via strategy extraction (Beyersdorff & Pich, LICS'16). Here we ... more >>>

Recently Beyersdorff, Bonacina, and Chew (ITCS'16) introduced a natural class of Frege systems for quantified Boolean formulas (QBF) and showed strong lower bounds for restricted versions of these systems. Here we provide a comprehensive analysis of the new extended Frege system from Beyersdorff et al., denoted EF+$\forall$red, which is a ... more >>>

We prove that $T_{NC^1}$, the true universal first-order theory in the language containing names for all uniform $NC^1$ algorithms, cannot prove that for sufficiently large $n$, SAT is not computable by circuits of size $n^{2kc}$ where $k\geq 1, c\geq 4$ unless each function $f\in SIZE(n^k)$ can be approximated by formulas ... more >>>

We prove that the Nisan-Wigderson generators based on computationally hard functions and suitable matrices are hard for propositional proof systems that admit feasible interpolation.