The study of the graph diameter of polytopes is a classical open problem in polyhedral geometry and the theory of linear optimization. In this paper we continue the investigation initiated in [4] by introducing a vast hierarchy of generalizations to the notion of graph diameter. This hierarchy provides some interesting lower bounds for the usual graph diameter. After explaining the structure of the hierarchy and discussing these bounds, we focus on clearly explaining the differences and similarities among the many diameter notions of our hierarchy. Finally, we fully characterize the hierarchy in dimension two. It collapses into fewer categories, for which we exhibit the ranges of values that can be realized as diameters.
In 1992, Kalai and Kleitman proved a quasipolynomial upper bound on the diameters of convex polyhedra. Todd and Sukegawa-Kitahara proved tail-quasipolynomial bounds on the diameters of polyhedra. These tail bounds apply when the number of facets is greater than a certain function of the dimension. We prove tail-quasipolynomial bounds on the diameters of polytopes and normal simplicial complexes. We also prove tail-polynomial upper bounds on the diameters of polyhedra.
In this paper we introduce the circuit diameter of polyhedra, which is always bounded from above by the combinatorial diameter. We consider dual transportation polyhedra defined on general bipartite graphs. For complete $M{\times}N$ bipartite graphs the Hirsch bound $(M{-}1)(N{-}1)$ on the combinatorial diameter is a known tight bound (Balinski, 1984). For the circuit diameter we show the much stronger bound $M{+}N{-}2$ for all dual transportation polyhedra defined on arbitrary bipartite graphs with $M{+}N$ nodes.
Both the combinatorial and the circuit diameters of polyhedra are of interest to the theory of linear programming for their intimate connection to a best-case performance of linear programming algorithms. We study the diameters of dual network flow polyhedra associated to $b$-flows on directed graphs $G=(V,E)$ and prove quadratic upper bounds for both of them: the minimum of $(|V|-1)\cdot |E|$ and $\frac{1}{6}|V|^3$ for the combinatorial diameter, and $\frac{|V|\cdot (|V|-1)}{2}$ for the circuit diameter. The latter strengthens the cubic bound implied by a result in [De Loera, Hemmecke, Lee; 2…
We introduce a new combinatorial abstraction for the graphs of polyhedra. The new abstraction is a flexible framework defined by combinatorial properties, with each collection of properties taken providing a variant for studying the diameters of polyhedral graphs. One particular variant has a diameter which satisfies the best known upper bound on the diameters of polyhedra. Another variant has superlinear asymptotic diameter, and together with some combinatorial operations, gives a concrete approach for disproving the Linear Hirsch Conjecture.
The investigation of combinatorial diameters of polyhedra is a classical topic in linear programming due to its connection with the possibility of an efficient pivot rule for the simplex method. We are interested in the diameters of polyhedra formed from the so-called parallel or series connection of oriented matroids: oriented matroids are the natural way to connect representable matroid theory with the combinatorics of linear programming, and these connections are fundamental operations for the construction of more complicated matroids from elementary matroid blocks. We prove that, for polyh…
In 1992, Kalai and Kleitman proved the first subexponential upper bound for the diameters of convex polyhedra. Eisenbrand et al. proved this bound holds for connected layer families, a novel approach to analyzing polytope diameters. Very recently, Todd improved the Kalai-Kleitman bound for polyhedra to $(n-d)^{1+\log_2d}$. In this note, we prove an analogous upper bound on the diameters of subset partition graphs satisfying a property related to the connectivity property of connected layer families.
The study of the diameter of the graph of polyhedra is a classical problem in the theory of linear programming. While transportation polytopes are at the core of operations research and statistics it is still open whether the Hirsch conjecture is true for general $m{\times}n$--transportation polytopes. In earlier work the first three authors introduced a hierarchy of variations to the notion of graph diameter in polyhedra. The key reason was that this hierarchy provides some interesting lower bounds for the usual graph diameter. This paper has three contributions: First, we compare the hierarc…
Circuits play a fundamental role in the theory of linear programming due to their intimate connection to algorithms of combinatorial optimization and the efficiency of the simplex method. We are interested in better understanding the properties of circuit walks in integral polyhedra. In this paper, we introduce a hierarchy for integral polyhedra based on different types of behavior exhibited by their circuit walks. Many problems in combinatorial optimization fall into the most interesting categories of this hierarchy - steps of circuit walks only stop at integer points, at vertices, or follow …
We derive a new upper bound on the diameter of a polyhedron P = {x \in R^n : Ax <= b}, where A \in Z^{m\timesn}. The bound is polynomial in n and the largest absolute value of a sub-determinant of A, denoted by Δ. More precisely, we show that the diameter of P is bounded by O(Δ^2 n^4 log nΔ). If P is bounded, then we show that the diameter of P is at most O(Δ^2 n^3.5 log nΔ). For the special case in which A is a totally unimodular matrix, the bounds are O(n^4 log n) and O(n^3.5 log n) respectively. This improves over the previous best bound of O(m^16 n^3 (log mn)^3) due to Dyer and Frieze.
From the point of view of optimization, a critical issue is relating the combinatorial diameter of a polyhedron to its number of facets $f$ and dimension $d$. In the seminal paper of Klee and Walkup [KW67], the Hirsch conjecture of an upper bound of $f-d$ was shown to be equivalent to several seemingly simpler statements, and was disproved for unbounded polyhedra through the construction of a particular 4-dimensional polyhedron $U_4$ with 8 facets. The Hirsch bound for bounded polyhedra was only recently disproved by Santos. We consider analogous properties for a variant of the combinatorial d…
The Hirsch conjecture, posed in 1957, stated that the graph of a $d$-dimensional polytope or polyhedron with $n$ facets cannot have diameter greater than $n - d$. The conjecture itself has been disproved, but what we know about the underlying question is quite scarce. Most notably, no polynomial upper bound is known for the diameters that were conjectured to be linear. In contrast, no polyhedron violating the conjecture by more than 25% is known. This paper reviews several recent attempts and progress on the question. Some work in the world of polyhedra or (more often) bounded polytopes, but s…
W. M. Hirsch formulated a beautiful conjecture on diameters of convex polyhedra.I suggest a new viewpoint with the deformation and moduli of polytopes.
This short note extends a recent result (Bonifas et al, On sub-determinants and the diameter of polyhedra, Discrete Computational Geometry, 52, 2014) of an upper bound of the diameter of a convex polytope defined by an integer matrix to a similar upper bound of the diameter of a convex polytope defined by a real matrix. It also shows, by an example, that the new bound may be better than the ones of Bonifas et al.
Motivated by the problem of bounding the number of iterations of the Simplex algorithm we investigate the possible lengths of monotone paths followed by the Simplex method inside the oriented graphs of polyhedra (oriented by the objective function). We consider both the shortest and the longest monotone paths and estimate the monotone diameter and height of polyhedra. Our analysis applies to transportation polytopes, matroid polytopes, matching polytopes, shortest-path polytopes, and the TSP, among others. We begin by showing that combinatorial cubes have monotone and Bland pivot height bounde…
We solve a problem in the combinatorics of polyhedra motivated by the network simplex method. We show that the Hirsch conjecture holds for the diameter of the graphs of all network-flow polytopes, in particular the diameter of a network-flow polytope for a network with $n$ nodes and $m$ arcs is never more than $m+n-1$. A key step to prove this is to show the same result for classical transportation polytopes.
Circuit-augmentation algorithms are generalizations of the Simplex method, where in each step one is allowed to move along a fixed set of directions, called circuits, that is a superset of the edges of a polytope. We show that in the circuit-augmentation framework the greatest-improvement and Dantzig pivot rules are NP-hard, already for 0/1-LPs. Differently, the steepest-descent pivot rule can be carried out in polynomial time in the 0/1 setting, and the number of circuit augmentations required to reach an optimal solution according to this rule is strongly-polynomial for 0/1-LPs. The number o…
Let $R$ be a Noetherian commutative ring of positive dimension. The Hochster-Huneke graph of $R$ (sometimes called the dual graph of Spec $R$ and denoted by $\mathcal{G} (R)$) is defined as follows: the vertices are the minimal prime ideals of $R$, and the edges are the pairs of prime ideals $(P_1,P_2)$ with height $(P_1 + P_2) = 1$. If $R$ satisfies Serre's property $(S_2)$, then $\mathcal{G} (R)$ is connected. In this note, we provide lower and upper bounds for the maximum diameter of Hochster-Huneke graphs of Stanley-Reisner rings satisfying $(S_2)$. These bounds depend on the number of var…
This work is about graphs arising from Reuleaux polyhedra. Such graphs must necessarily be planar, $3$-connected and strongly self-dual. We study the question of when these conditions are sufficient. If $G$ is any such a graph with isomorphism $τ: G \to G^*$ (where $G^*$ is the unique dual graph), a metric mapping is a map $η: V(G) \to \mathbb R^3$ such that the diameter of $η(G)$ is $1$ and for every pair of vertices $(u,v)$ such that $u\in τ(v)$ we have dist$(η(u),η(v)) = 1$. If $η$ is injective, it is called a metric embedding. Note that a metric embedding gives rise to a Reuleaux Polyhedra…
Oriented matroids (often called order types) are combinatorial structures that generalize point configurations, vector configurations, hyperplane arrangements, polyhedra, linear programs, and directed graphs. Oriented matroids have played a key role in combinatorics, computational geometry, and optimization. This paper surveys prior work and presents an update on the search for bounds on the diameter of the cocircuit graph of an oriented matroid. We review the diameter problem and show the diameter bounds of general oriented matroids reduce to those of uniform oriented matroids. We give the la…
We study the simplex method over polyhedra satisfying certain "discrete curvature" lower bounds, which enforce that the boundary always meets vertices at sharp angles. Motivated by linear programs with totally unimodular constraint matrices, recent results of Bonifas et al (SOCG 2012), Brunsch and Röglin (ICALP 2013), and Eisenbrand and Vempala (2014) have improved our understanding of such polyhedra. We develop a new type of dual analysis of the shadow simplex method which provides a clean and powerful tool for improving all previously mentioned results. Our methods are inspired by the recent…
This paper discusses properties of the graphs of 2-way and 3-way transportation polytopes, in particular, their possible numbers of vertices and their diameters. Our main results include a quadratic bound on the diameter of axial 3-way transportation polytopes and a catalogue of non-degenerate transportation polytopes of small sizes. The catalogue disproves five conjectures about these polyhedra stated in the monograph by Yemelichev et al. (1984). It also allowed us to discover some new results. For example, we prove that the number of vertices of an $m\times n$ transportation polytope is a mu…
We investigate the Sherali-Adams lift & project hierarchy applied to a graph isomorphism polytope whose integer points encode the isomorphisms between two graphs. In particular, the Sherali-Adams relaxations characterize a new vertex classification algorithm for graph isomorphism, which we call the generalized vertex classification algorithm. This algorithm generalizes the classic vertex classification algorithm and generalizes the work of Tinhofer on polyhedral methods for graph automorphism testing. We establish that the Sherali-Adams lift & project hierarchy when applied to a graph isomorph…
The purpose of this paper is the formal verification of a counterexample of Santos et al. to the so-called Hirsch Conjecture on the diameter of polytopes (bounded convex polyhedra). In contrast with the pen-and-paper proof, our approach is entirely computational: we implement in Coq and prove correct an algorithm that explicitly computes, within the proof assistant, vertex-edge graphs of polytopes as well as their diameter. The originality of this certificate-based algorithm is to achieve a tradeoff between simplicity and efficiency. Simplicity is crucial in obtaining the proof of correctness …
The notion of friendliness between trees first appeared in solution of Lando's problem on intersection of polyhedra in 3-space. A tree is friendly to a path graph if edges of the tree can be numbered so that for each k,s the path between the edges k and k+1 contains either both or none of the edges k+2s,k+2s+1. Theorem. If a tree contains a path containing all vertices of degree greater than 2, then the tree is friendly to a path graph. We also prove another sufficient condition for friendliness to a path graph and a criterion for friendliness between trees, one of which has diameter 3.
We characterize the edges of two classes of $0/1$-polytopes. The first class corresponds to the stable set polytope of a graph $G$ and includes chain polytopes of posets, some instances of matroid independence polytopes, as well as newly-defined polytopes whose vertices correspond to noncrossing set partitions. In analogy with matroid basis polytopes, the second class is obtained by considering the stable sets of maximal cardinality. We investigate how the class of $0/1$-polytopes whose edges satisfy our characterization is situated within the hierarchy of $0/1$-polytopes. This includes the cl…
