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URN: urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-17815
URL: http://drops.dagstuhl.de/opus/volltexte/2008/1781/
Ben-Sasson, Eli ; Nordström, Jakob

Understanding space in resolution: optimal lower bounds and exponential trade-offs

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Abstract

We continue the study of tradeoffs between space and length of resolution proofs and focus on two new results: begin{enumerate} item We show that length and space in resolution are uncorrelated. This is proved by exhibiting families of CNF formulas of size $O(n)$ that have proofs of length $O(n)$ but require space $Omega(n / log n)$. Our separation is the strongest possible since any proof of length $O(n)$ can always be transformed into a proof in space $O(n / log n)$, and improves previous work reported in [Nordstr"{o}m 2006, Nordstr"{o}m and H{aa}stad 2008]. item We prove a number of trade-off results for space in the range from constant to $O(n / log n)$, most of them superpolynomial or even exponential. This is a dramatic improvement over previous results in [Ben-Sasson 2002, Hertel and Pitassi 2007, Nordstr"{o}m 2007]. end{enumerate} The key to our results is the following, somewhat surprising, theorem: Any CNF formula $F$ can be transformed by simple substitution transformation into a new formula $F'$ such that if $F$ has the right properties, $F'$ can be proven in resolution in essentially the same length as $F$ but the minimal space needed for $F'$ is lower-bounded by the number of variables that have to be mentioned simultaneously in any proof for $F$. Applying this theorem to so-called pebbling formulas defined in terms of pebble games over directed acyclic graphs and analyzing black-white pebbling on these graphs yields our results.

BibTeX - Entry

@InProceedings{bensasson_et_al:DSP:2008:1781,
  author =	{Eli Ben-Sasson and Jakob Nordstr{\"o}m},
  title =	{Understanding space in resolution: optimal lower bounds and exponential trade-offs},
  booktitle =	{Computational Complexity of Discrete Problems },
  year =	{2008},
  editor =	{Peter Bro Miltersen and R{\"u}diger Reischuk and Georg Schnitger and Dieter van Melkebeek},
  number =	{08381},
  series =	{Dagstuhl Seminar Proceedings},
  ISSN =	{1862-4405},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl - Leibniz-Zentrum fuer Informatik, Germany},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{http://drops.dagstuhl.de/opus/volltexte/2008/1781},
  annote =	{Keywords: Proof complexity, Resolution, Pebbling.}
}

Keywords: Proof complexity, Resolution, Pebbling.
Seminar: 08381 - Computational Complexity of Discrete Problems
Issue date: 2008
Date of publication: 17.12.2008

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