arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Michał Lasoń.
Matroid base polytope and independence polytope are Cohen-Macaulay. There are plenty of examples when they are also Gorenstein. We provide a full classification of matroids whose independence polytope or base polytope is Gorenstein. This answers to a question raised by Herzog and Hibi.
Given a hypergraph $H=(V,E)$, define for every edge $e\in E$ a linear expression with arguments corresponding to the vertices. Next, let the polynomial $p_H$ be the product of such linear expressions for all edges. Our main goal is to find a relationship between the Alon-Tarsi number of $p_H$ and the edge density of $H$. We prove that $AT(p_H)=\lceil \mathrm{ed}(H)\rceil+1$ if all the coefficients in $p_H$ are equal to $1$ and the base field has characteristic zero. Our main result is that, over an arbitrary field, if on every edge the coefficients are not all equal, then they can be permuted within the edges so that for the resulting polynomial $p_H^\prime$, $AT(p_H^\prime)\leq 2\lceil \mathrm{ed}(H)\rceil+1$ holds. We conjecture that this bound holds for every hypergraph polynomial without permuting its coefficients. If this were true, then in particular a significant generalization of the famous 1-2-3 Conjecture would follow.
Arboricity and degeneracy are two fundamental and closely related graph parameters that measure the sparsity of a graph. Every $k$-degenerate graph is $k$-arboric, but some $k$-arboric graphs are only $(2k-1)$-degenerate. However, every maximal $k$-arboric multigraph with $n$ vertices and every maximal $k$-degenerate multigraph with $n$ vertices has exactly $k(n-1)$ edges. These basic observations lead to a natural structural question: How far are $k$-arboric graphs from being $k$-degenerate? We answer this question by showing that: By at most a $(k-1)$-bounded-degree graph apart. More specifically, we prove that a $k$-arboric multigraph admits a $(k,k-1)$-decomposition, that is, its edges can be partitioned into two multisets such that one spans a $k$-degenerate multigraph and the other spans a multigraph with every vertex having degree at most $k-1$. Moreover, we provide a complete characterisation of all possible such decomposition types. Namely, for any integers $k \ge 1$ and $d,h \ge 0$ we show that every $k$-arboric multigraph admits a $(d,h)$-decomposition if and only if $d\geq k$ and $d+h\geq 2k-1$. Our proofs are constructive and we present a polynomial time algorithm that produces such decompositions. By contrast, we show that related decision problems for general graphs (without constraints on the arboricity) are NP-complete.
We show that the toric ideal of the Fano matroid polytope does not have a quadratic Gröbner basis. This resolves in the negative a strong version of White's conjecture from matroid theory. This result was found independently by De Loera, Ferroni, Morales, and Rambau. Our approach is based on a new characterization of regular unimodular flag triangulations, which reduces the problem to an instance of SMT involving boolean and real variables. We then use an SMT solver to prove unsatisfiability. Using this approach, we also show that all 8-element matroids which do not have the Fano matroid or its dual as a minor, with the possible exception of the matroid $T_8$, have toric ideals which admit quadratic Gröbner bases.
We consider a graph coloring algorithm that processes vertices in order taken uniformly at random and assigns colors to them using First-Fit strategy. We show that this algorithm uses, in expectation, at most $(1 + o(1))\cdot \ln n \,/\, \ln\ln n$ different colors to color any forest with $n$ vertices. We also construct a family of forests that shows that this bound is best possible.
In $1980$ White conjectured that every element of the toric ideal of a matroid is generated by quadratic binomials corresponding to symmetric exchanges. We prove White's conjecture for high degrees with respect to the rank. This extends our result arXiv:1302.5236 confirming White's conjecture `up to saturation'. Furthermore, we study degrees of Gröbner bases and Betti tables of the toric ideals of matroids of a fixed rank.
We prove that a class of graphs with an excluded minor and with the maximum degree sublinear in the number of edges is maximally modular, that is, modularity tends to 1 as the number of edges tends to infinity.
We prove that seminormality of cut polytopes is equivalent to normality. This settles two conjectures regarding seminormality of cut polytopes.
We study a new optimal stopping problem: Let $G$ be a fixed graph with $n$ vertices which become active on-line in time, one by another, in a random order. The active part of $G$ is the subgraph induced by the active vertices. Find a stopping algorithm that maximizes the expected number of connected components of the active part of $G$. We prove that if $G$ is a $k$-tree, then there is no asymptotically better algorithm than `wait until $\frac{1}{k+1}$ fraction of vertices'. The maximum expected number of connected components equals to $$\left(\frac{k^k}{(k+1)^{k+1}}+o(1)\right)n.$$
Let $f:\mathbb{K}^n\rightarrow\mathbb{K}^m$ be a generically finite polynomial map of degree $d$ between affine spaces. In arXiv:1411.5011 we proved that if $\mathbb{K}$ is the field of complex or real numbers, then the set $S_f$ of points at which $f$ is not proper, is covered by polynomial curves of degree at most $d-1$. In this paper we generalize this result to positive characteristic. We provide a geometric proof of an upper bound by $d$.
Let $f$ be a generically finite polynomial map $f: \mathbb{C}^n\to \mathbb{C}^m$ of algebraic degree $d$. Motivated by the study of the Jacobian Conjecture, we prove that the set $S_f$ of non-properness of $f$ is covered by parametric curves of degree at most $d-1$. This bound is best possible. Moreover, we prove that if $X\subset\mathbb{R}^n$ is a closed algebraic set covered by parametric curves, and $f: X\rightarrow\mathbb{R}^m$ is a generically finite polynomial map, then the set $S_f$ of non-properness of $f$ is also covered by parametric curves. Moreover, if $X$ is covered by parametric curves of degree at most $d_1$, and the map $f$ has degree $d_2$, then the set $S_f$ is covered by parametric curves of degree at most $2d_1d_2$. As an application of this result we show a real version of the Białynicki-Birula theorem: Let $G$ be a real, non-trivial, connected, unipotent group which acts effectively and polynomially on a connected smooth algebraic variety $X\subset\mathbb{R}^n$. Then the set $Fix(G)$ of fixed points has no isolated points.
The toric variety of a matroid is projectively normal, and therefore it is Cohen-Macaulay. We provide a complete graph-theoretic classification when the toric variety of a graphic matroid is Gorenstein.
This thesis is basically devoted to matroids -- fundamental structure of combinatorial optimization -- though some of our results concern simplicial complexes, or Euclidean spaces. We study old and new problems for these structures, with combinatorial, algebraic, and topological flavor.
We prove a new exchange property for bases of a matroid that generalizes the multiple symmetric exchange property. For every bases $B_1,\dots,B_k$ of a matroid and a subset $A_1\subset B_1$ there exist subsets $A_2\subset B_2,\dots,A_k\subset B_k$ such that all sets $(B_i\setminus A_i)\cup A_{i-1}$ achieved by a cyclic shift of $A_i$'s by one are bases.
In this note we introduce Cox rings of singularities and explicitly compute them in the case of du Val singularities $\mathbb{D}_n,\mathbb{E}_6,\mathbb{E}_7$ and $\mathbb{E}_8$.
The main goal of this thesis is to study $\mathbb{K}$-uniruled sets that appear in affine geometry. At the beginning we discuss the property of $\mathbb{K}$-uniruledness and its equivalent conditions. Then we bound from above the degree of $\mathbb{K}$-uniruledness of the non-properness set of a polynomial map in terms of its degree and degree of $\mathbb{K}$-uniruledness of the domain variety. At the end we show that some sets associated with the set of fixed points of an algebraic group action are $\mathbb{K}$-uniruled.
Several classical constructions illustrate the fact that the chromatic number of a graph can be arbitrarily large compared to its clique number. However, until very recently, no such construction was known for intersection graphs of geometric objects in the plane. We provide a general construction that for any arc-connected compact set $X$ in $\mathbb{R}^2$ that is not an axis-aligned rectangle and for any positive integer $k$ produces a family $\mathcal{F}$ of sets, each obtained by an independent horizontal and vertical scaling and translation of $X$, such that no three sets in $\mathcal{F}$ pairwise intersect and $χ(\mathcal{F})>k$. This provides a negative answer to a question of Gyarfas and Lehel for L-shapes. With extra conditions, we also show how to construct a triangle-free family of homothetic (uniformly scaled) copies of a set with arbitrarily large chromatic number. This applies to many common shapes, like circles, square boundaries, and equilateral L-shapes. Additionally, we reveal a surprising connection between coloring geometric objects in the plane and on-line coloring of intervals on the line.
A coloring of the ground set of a matroid is proper if elements of the same color form an independent set. For a loopless matroid $M$, its chromatic number $χ(M)$ is the minimum number of colors in a proper coloring. In this note we study a game-theoretic variant of this parameter. Suppose that Alice and Bob alternately properly color the ground set of a matroid $M$ using a fixed set of colors. The game ends when the whole matroid has been colored, or if they arrive to a partial coloring that cannot be further properly extended. Alice wins in the first case, while Bob in the second. The game chromatic number of $M$, denoted by $χ_{g}(M)$, is the minimum size of the set of colors for which Alice has a winning strategy. Clearly, $χ_{g}(M)\geqχ(M)$. We prove an upper bound $χ_{g}(M)\leq 2χ(M)$ for every matroid $M$. This improves and extends a result of Bartnicki, Grytczuk and Kierstead, who showed that $χ_{g}(M)\leq 3χ(M)$ holds for graphic matroids. Our bound is almost tight, as we construct a family of matroids $M_k$ (for $k\geq 3$) satisfying $χ(M_k)=k$ and $χ_{g}(M_k)=2k-1$.