Exponential Gaps Between Intuitionistic Linear Extended Frege Systems

Abstract

In this paper, we establish exponential separations between Extended Frege systems for a range of intuitionistic substructural and linear logics. More precisely, for any logic $L$ below the intuitionistic logic obtained by extending $\mathbf{ILL}$ with structural rules, and any logic $M$ not contained in $L$, we construct a family of $\mathsf{FL_e}$-provable formulas that have short proofs in $M$-Frege but require proofs of exponential size in $L$-Extended Frege. The same result holds in the $!$-free settings, using $\mathbf{IMALL}$ and $\mathbf{FL_e}$ in place of $\mathbf{ILL}$. The key ingredient in proving these separations is a variant of the feasible disjunction property for $L$-Frege, which may be of independent interest.