We define theories of bounded arithmetic, whose definable functions and relations are exactly those in certain complexity classes. Based on a recursion-theoretic characterization of NC in Clote , the first-order theory TNC, whose principal axiom scheme is a form of short induction on notation for nondeterministic polynomial-time computable relations, has the property that those functions having nondeterministic polynomial-time graph Θ such that TNC x y Θ are exactly the functions in NC, computable on a parallel random-access machine in polylogarithmic parallel (...) time with a polynomial number of processors.0 We then define three theories of weak second-order arithmetic which respectively characterize relations in the classes of alternating logarithmic time, logspace and nondeterministic logspace. (shrink)

Ajtai’s completeness theorem roughly states that a countable structure A coded in a model of arithmetic can be end-extended and expanded to a model of a given theory G if and only if a contradiction cannot be derived by a proof from G plus the diagram of A, provided that the proof is definable in A and contains only formulas of a standard length. The existence of such model extensions is closely related to questions in complexity theory. In this paper (...) we give a new proof of Ajtai’s theorem using basic techniques of model theory. (shrink)

Allen, B., Arithmetizing Uniform NC, Annals of Pure and Applied Logic 53 1–50. We give a characterization of the complexity class Uniform NC as an algebra of functions on the natural numbers which is the closure of several basic functions under composition and a schema of recursion. We then define a fragment of bounded arithmetic, and, using our characterization of Uniform NC, show that this fragment is capable of proving the totality of all of the functions in Uniform NC. Lastly, (...) in the spirit of Buss, we show that any function which is definable by a ∑b1-formula in our theory is a function which is in Uniform NC. (shrink)