Sufficient conditions for first order based sequent calculi to admit cut elimination by a Schütte-Tait style cut elimination proof are established. The worst case complexity of the cut elimination is analysed. The obtained upper bound is parameterized by a quantity related with the calculus. The conditions are general enough to be satisfied by a wide class of sequent calculi encompassing, among others, some sequent calculi presentations for the first order and the propositional versions of classical and intuitionistic logic, classical and intuitionistic modal logic S4, and classical and intuitionistic linear logic and some of its fragments. Moreover the conditions are such that there is an algorithm for checking if they are satisfied by a sequent calculus.

Labelled sequent calculi are provided for a wide class of normal modal systems using truth values as labels. The rules for formula constructors are common to all modal systems. For each modal system, specific rules for truth values are provided that reflect the envisaged properties of the accessibility relation. Both local and global reasoning are supported. Strong completeness is proved for a natural two-sorted algebraic semantics. As a corollary, strong completeness is also obtained over general Kripke semantics. A duality result

We investigate semantics for classical proof based on the sequent calculus. We show that the propositional connectives are not quite well-behaved from a traditional categorical perspective, and give a more refined, but necessarily complex, analysis of how connectives may be characterised abstractly. Finally we explain the consequences of insisting on more familiar categorical behaviour.

Formal proofs, even simple ones, may hide an unexpected intricate combinatorics. We define a new combinatorial invariant, the bridge group of a proof, which encodes the cyclic structure of proofs in the sequent calculus. We compute the bridge groups of two infinite families of proofs and identify them with the Baumslag–Solitar and Gersten groups. We observe that the distortion of cyclic subgroups in these groups equals the asymptotic growth of the procedure of elimination of lemmas from the proofs. © 2001 Academic Press Key Words: formal proofs; logical flow graphs; cut elimination; bridge groups; Baumslag–Solitar groups; Gersten groups.

The logical flow graphs of sequent calculus proofs might contain oriented cycles. For the predicate calculus the elimination of cycles might be non-elementary and this was shown in [Car96]. For the propositional calculus, we prove that if a proof of k lines contains n cycles then there exists an acyclic proof with O(k n+1 ) lines. In particular, there is a quadratic time algorithm which eliminates a single cycle from a proof. These results are motivated by the search for general methods on proving lower bounds on proof size and by the design of more efficient heuristic algorithms for proof search.

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Streams are acyclic directed subgraphs of the logical flow graph of a proof and represent bundles of paths with the same origin and the same end. Streams can be described with a natural algebraic formalism which allows to explain in algebraic terms the evolution of proofs during cutelimination. In our approach, "logic" is often forgotten and combinatorial properties of graphs are taken into account to explain logical phenomena.