Ricerc@Sapienza

Cutting planes proofs for integer programs can naturally be defined both in a syntactic and in a semantic fashion. Filmus et al. (STACS 2016) proved that semantic cutting planes proofs may be exponentially stronger than syntactic ones, even if they use the semantic rule only once. We show that when semantic cutting planes proofs are restricted to have coefficients bounded by a function growing slowly enough, syntactic cutting planes can simulate them efficiently.

We introduce a new way of composing proofs in rule-based proof systems that generalizes tree-like and dag-like proofs. In the new definition, proofs are directed graphs of derived formulas, in which cycles are allowed as long as every formula is derived at least as many times as it is required as a premise. We call such proofs circular. We show that, for all sets of standard inference rules, circular proofs are sound.