arXiv subjects

Michele Conforti

Publications and source records attributed to Michele Conforti.

29 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2017

Unique lifting of integer variables in minimal inequalities

This paper contributes to the theory of cutting planes for mixed integer linear programs (MILPs). Minimal valid inequalities are well understood for a relaxation of an MILP in tableau form where all the nonbasic variables are continuous; they are derived using the gauge function of maximal lattice-free convex sets. In this paper we study lifting functions for the nonbasic integer variables starting from such minimal valid inequalities. We characterize precisely when the lifted coefficient is equal to the coefficient of the corresponding continuous variable in every minimal lifting. The answer is a nonconvex region that can be obtained as a finite union of convex polyhedra. We then establish a necessary and sufficient condition for the uniqueness of the lifting function.

math.OC↗

arXiv2017

Minimal inequalities for an infinite relaxation of integer programs

We show that maximal $S$-free convex sets are polyhedra when $S$ is the set of integral points in some rational polyhedron of $\mathbb{R}^n$. This result extends a theorem of Lovász characterizing maximal lattice-free convex sets. Our theorem has implications in integer programming. In particular, we show that maximal $S$-free convex sets are in one-to-one correspondence with minimal inequalities.

math.OC↗

arXiv2017

Maximal lattice-free convex sets in linear subspaces

We consider a model that arises in integer programming, and show that all irredundant inequalities are obtained from maximal lattice-free convex sets in an affine subspace. We also show that these sets are polyhedra. The latter result extends a theorem of Lovász characterizing maximal lattice-free convex sets in $\mathbb{R}^n$.

math.OC↗

arXiv2016

Optimality certificates for convex minimization and Helly numbers

We consider the problem of minimizing a convex function over a subset of R^n that is not necessarily convex (minimization of a convex function over the integer points in a polytope is a special case). We define a family of duals for this problem and show that, under some natural conditions, strong duality holds for a dual problem in this family that is more restrictive than previously considered duals.

math.OC↗

arXiv2015

Cut dominants and forbidden minors

The cut dominant of a graph is the unbounded polyhedron whose points are all those that dominate some convex combination of proper cuts. Minimizing a nonnegative linear function over the cut dominant is equivalent to finding a minimum weight cut in the graph. We give a forbidden-minor characterization of the graphs whose cut dominant can be defined by inequalities with integer coefficients and right-hand side at most 2. Our result is related to the forbidden-minor characterization of TSP-perfect graphs by Fonlupt and Naddef (Math. Prog., 1992). We prove that our result implies theirs, with a shorter proof. Furthermore, we establish general properties of forbidden minors for right-hand sides larger than 2.

math.CO↗

arXiv2015

Subgraph Polytopes and Independence Polytopes of Count Matroids

Given an undirected graph, the non-empty subgraph polytope is the convex hull of the characteristic vectors of pairs (F, S) where S is a non-empty subset of nodes and F is a subset of the edges with both endnodes in S. We obtain a strong relationship between the non-empty subgraph polytope and the spanning forest polytope. We further show that these polytopes provide polynomial size extended formulations for independence polytopes of count matroids, which generalizes recent results obtained by Iwata et al. referring to sparsity matroids. As a byproduct, we obtain new lower bounds on the extension complexity of the spanning forest polytope in terms of extension complexities of independence polytopes of these matroids.

cs.DM↗

arXiv2015

Stable Sets and Graphs with no Even Holes

We develop decomposition/composition tools for efficiently solving maximum weight stable sets problems as well as for describing them as polynomially sized linear programs (using "compact systems"). Some of these are well-known but need some extra work to yield polynomial "decomposition schemes". We apply the tools to graphs with no even hole and no cap. A hole is a chordless cycle of length greater than three and a cap is a hole together with an additional node that is adjacent to two adjacent nodes of the hole and that has no other neighbors on the hole.

math.CO↗

arXiv2014

Reverse Split Rank

The reverse split rank of an integral polyhedron P is defined as the supremum of the split ranks of all rational polyhedra whose integer hull is P. Already in R^3 there exist polyhedra with infinite reverse split rank. We give a geometric characterization of the integral polyhedra in R^n with infinite reverse split rank.

math.OC↗

arXiv2014

The Projected Faces Property and Polyhedral Relations

Margot (1994) in his doctoral dissertation studied extended formulations of combinatorial polytopes that arise from "smaller" polytopes via some composition rule. He introduced the "projected faces property" of a polytope and showed that this property suffices to iteratively build extended formulations of composed polytopes. For the composed polytopes, we show that an extended formulation of the type studied in this paper is always possible only if the smaller polytopes have the projected faces property. Therefore, this produces a characterization of the projected faces property. Affinely generated polyhedral relations were introduced by Kaibel and Pashkovich (2011) to construct extended formulations for the convex hull of the images of a point under the action of some finite group of reflections. In this paper we prove that the projected faces property and affinely generated polyhedral relation are equivalent conditions.

math.CO↗

arXiv2014

Reverse Chvátal-Gomory rank

We introduce the reverse Chvátal-Gomory rank r*(P) of an integral polyhedron P, defined as the supremum of the Chvátal-Gomory ranks of all rational polyhedra whose integer hull is P. A well-known example in dimension two shows that there exist integral polytopes P with r*(P) equal to infinity. We provide a geometric characterization of polyhedra with this property in general dimension, and investigate upper bounds on r*(P) when this value is finite.

math.OC↗

arXiv2012

On the convergence of the affine hull of the Chvátal-Gomory closures

Given an integral polyhedron P and a rational polyhedron Q living in the same n-dimensional space and containing the same integer points as P, we investigate how many iterations of the Chvátal-Gomory closure operator have to be performed on Q to obtain a polyhedron contained in the affine hull of P. We show that if P contains an integer point in its relative interior, then such a number of iterations can be bounded by a function depending only on n. On the other hand, we prove that if P is not full-dimensional and does not contain any integer point in its relative interior, then no finite bound on the number of iterations exists.

math.OC↗