@inproceedings{JarvisaloK:SAT2014,
 author = {Matti J\"arvisalo and Janne H. Korhonen},
 title  = {Conditional Lower Bounds for Failed Literals and 
           Related Techniques},
 editor = {Uwe Egly and Carsten Sinz},
 booktitle = {Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on 
	Theory and Applications of Satisfiability Testing (SAT 2014)},
 publisher = {Springer},
 series = {Lecture Notes in Computer Science},
 volume = {8561},
 pages  = {75--84},
 year   = {2014},
}

Abstract:

We prove time-complexity lower bounds for various practically relevant 
probing-based CNF simplification techniques, namely failed literal 
detection and related techniques. Specifically, we show that improved 
algorithms for these simplification techniques would give a 
$2^{\delta n}$ time algorithm for CNF-SAT for some $\delta<1$, 
violating the Strong Exponential Time Hypothesis.