December 9
Konrad Zdanowski, Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University in Warsaw
Truth predicate for $\Delta_0$ formulas and PSPACE computations

We consider a bounded arithmetic in Buss's language enriched with a predicate Tr which is assumed to be a truth definition for bounded sentences. Among other things we assume polynomial induction for $\Sigma^b_1(\text{Tr})$ formulas. We show that such an arithmetic captures PSPACE. We prove a witnessing theorem for such an arithmetic by an interpretation of free-cuts free proofs of strict $\Sigma^{1,b}_1$ in $U^{1,*}_2$, a canonical second order arithmetic capturing PSPACE. It follows that the problem of the existence of a truth definition for $\Delta_0$ sentences without the totality of $\exp$ might be more about separating subexponential time alternation hierarchies from PSPACE.

The presentation is based on the following article: Konrad Zdanowski, Truth definition for $\Delta_0$ formulas and PSPACE computations, Fundamenta Mathematicae 252(2021) , 1-38.

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