Duplication of directed graphs and exponential blow up of proofs (Q1125056)

The author presents in a self-contained and suggestive way a combinatorial analysis of cut-elimination in Gentzen sequent calculus LK. One motivation is the search for ``hard tautologies'' for LK. The author associates a special kind of graph to each proof. Some upper and lower bounds for cut-elimination are then obtained which depend only on the associated graphs.