Abstract
Quantified Boolean formulas generalize propositional formulas by admitting quantifications over propositional variables. We compare proof systems with different quantifier handling paradigms for quantified Boolean formulas (QBFs) with respect to their ability to allow succinct proofs. We analyze cut-free sequent systems extended by different quantifier rules and show that some rules are better than some others.
Q-resolution is an elegant extension of propositional resolution to QBFs and is applicable to formulas in prenex conjunctive normal form. In Q-resolution, there is no explicit handling of quantifiers by specific rules. Instead the forall reduction rule which operates on single clauses inspects the global quantifier prefix. We show that there are classes of formulas for which there are short cut-free tree proofs in a sequent system, but any Q-resolution refutation of the negation of the formula is exponential.
The work was partially supported by the Austrian Science Foundation (FWF) under grant S11409-N23. We thank the referees for valuable comments.
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Egly, U. (2012). On Sequent Systems and Resolution for QBFs. In: Cimatti, A., Sebastiani, R. (eds) Theory and Applications of Satisfiability Testing – SAT 2012. SAT 2012. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7317. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31612-8_9
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