Comparing Instance Generation Methods for Automated Reasoning

摘要

The clause-linking technique of Lee and Plaisted proves the unsatisfiability of a set of first-order clauses by generating a sufficiently large set of instances of these clauses that can be shown to be propositionally unsatisfiable. In recent years, this approach has been refined in several directions, leading to both tableau-based methods, such as the disconnection tableau calculus, and saturation-based methods, such as primal partial instantiation and resolution-based instance generation. We investigate the relationship between these calculi and answer the question to what extent refutation or consistency proofs in one calculus can be simulated in another one.