Knowledge-based Cooperation between Theorem Provers by Techs

We present a methodology for coupling several saturation-based theoremprovers (running on different computers). The methodology is well-suited for re-alizing cooperation between different incarnations of one basic prover. Moreover,also different heterogeneous provers - that differ from each other in the calculusand in the heuristic they employ - can be coupled. Cooperation between the dif-ferent provers is achieved by periodically interchanging clauses which are selectedby so-called referees. We present theoretic results regarding the completeness ofthe system of cooperating provers as well as describe concrete heuristics for de-signing referees. Furthermore, we report on two experimental studies performedwith homogeneous and heterogeneous provers in the areas superposition and un-failing completion. The results reveal that the occurring synergetic effects leadto a significant improvement of performance.