Arrangements of equal minors in the positive

Abstract. We discuss arrangements of equal minors in totally positive matrices. More precisely, we would like to investigate the structure of possible equalities and inequalities between the minors. We show that arrangements of equals minors of largest value are in bijection with sorted sets, which earlier appeared in the context of alcoved polytopes and Gröbner bases. Maximal arrangements of this form correspond to simplices of the alcoved triangulation of the hypersimplex; and the number of such arrangements equals the Eulerian number. On the other hand, we conjecture and prove in many cases that arrangements of equal minors of smallest value are exactly the weakly separated sets. Weakly separated sets, originally introduced by Leclerc and Zelevinsky, are closely related to the positive Grassmannian and the associated cluster algebra. Résumé. Il s’agit des arrangements des mineurs égaux dans les matrices totalement positives. Plus précisément, nous aimerions étudier la structure des égalités et inégalités possibles entre les mineurs. Nous montrons que les arrangements des mineurs égaux de plus grande valeur sont en bijection avec les ensembles triés, qui auparavant apparaissaient dans le cadre de polytopes alcôve et bases de Gröbner. Arrangements maximales de ce format correspondent aux simplexes de la triangulation alcôve de la hypersimplex, et le nombre de ces arrangements est égal au nombre eulérien. D’autre part, nous conjecturons et prouvons dans des cas nombreux que les arrangements des mineurs égaux de plus petite valeur sont notamment les ensembles faiblement séparés. Ces ensembles faiblement séparés, initialement introduites par Leclerc et Zelevinsky, sont liés à la Grassmannienne positive et l’algèbre cluster

On the Maximum Crossing Number

Research about crossings is typically about minimization. In this paper, we consider \emph{maximizing} the number of crossings over all possible ways to draw a given graph in the plane. Alpert et al. [Electron. J. Combin., 2009] conjectured that any graph has a \emph{convex} straight-line drawing, e.g., a drawing with vertices in convex position, that maximizes the number of edge crossings. We disprove this conjecture by constructing a planar graph on twelve vertices that allows a non-convex drawing with more crossings than any convex one. Bald et al. [Proc. COCOON, 2016] showed that it is NP-hard to compute the maximum number of crossings of a geometric graph and that the weighted geometric case is NP-hard to approximate. We strengthen these results by showing hardness of approximation even for the unweighted geometric case and prove that the unweighted topological case is NP-hard.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figure

Arrangements of equal minors in the positive Grassmannian

We discuss arrangements of equal minors in totally positive matrices. More precisely, we would like to investigate the structure of possible equalities and inequalities between the minors. We show that arrangements of equals minors of largest value are in bijection with sorted sets, which earlier appeared in the context of alcoved polytopes and Gröbner bases. Maximal arrangements of this form correspond to simplices of the alcoved triangulation of the hypersimplex; and the number of such arrangements equals the Eulerian number. On the other hand, we conjecture and prove in many cases that arrangements of equal minors of smallest value are exactly the weakly separated sets. Weakly separated sets, originally introduced by Leclerc and Zelevinsky, are closely related to the \textitpositive Grassmannian and the associated cluster algebra

Discrete Geometry

[no abstract available

Discrete Geometry

The workshop on Discrete Geometry was attended by 53 participants, many of them young researchers. In 13 survey talks an overview of recent developments in Discrete Geometry was given. These talks were supplemented by 16 shorter talks in the afternoon, an open problem session and two special sessions. Mathematics Subject Classification (2000): 52Cxx. Abstract regular polytopes: recent developments. (Peter McMullen) Counting crossing-free configurations in the plane. (Micha Sharir) Geometry in additive combinatorics. (József Solymosi) Rigid components: geometric problems, combinatorial solutions. (Ileana Streinu) • Forbidden patterns. (János Pach) • Projected polytopes, Gale diagrams, and polyhedral surfaces. (Günter M. Ziegler) • What is known about unit cubes? (Chuanming Zong) There were 16 shorter talks in the afternoon, an open problem session chaired by Jesús De Loera, and two special sessions: on geometric transversal theory (organized by Eli Goodman) and on a new release of the geometric software Cinderella (Jürgen Richter-Gebert). On the one hand, the contributions witnessed the progress the field provided in recent years, on the other hand, they also showed how many basic (and seemingly simple) questions are still far from being resolved. The program left enough time to use the stimulating atmosphere of the Oberwolfach facilities for fruitful interaction between the participants

Graph Theory

This was a workshop on graph theory, with a comprehensive approach. Highlights included the emerging theories of sparse graph limits and of infinite matroids, new techniques for colouring graphs on surfaces, and extensions of graph minor theory to directed graphs and to immersion

Computing crossing numbers

The graph theoretic problem of crossing numbers has been around for over 60 years, but still very little is known about this simple, yet intricate nonplanarity measure. The question is easy to state: Given a graph, draw it in the plane with the minimum number of edge crossings. A lot of research has been devoted to giving an answer to this question, not only by graph theoreticians, but also by computer scientists. The crossing number is central to areas like chip design and automatic graph drawing. While there are algorithms to solve the problem heuristically, we know that it is in general NP-complete. Furthermore, we do not know if the problem is efficiently approximable, except for some special cases. In this thesis, we tackle the problem using Mathematical Programming. We show how to formulate the crossing number problem as systems of linear inequalities, and discuss how to solve these formulations for reasonably sized graphs to provable optimality in acceptable time--despite its theoretical complexity class. We present non-standard branch-and-cut-and-price techniques to achieve this goal, and introduce an efficient preprocessing algorithm, also valid for other traditional non-planarity measures. We discuss extensions of these ideas to related crossing number variants arising in practice, and show a practical application of a formerly purely theoretic crossing number derivative. The thesis also contains an extensive experimental study of the formulations and algorithms presented herein, and an outlook on its applicability for graph theoretic questions regarding the crossing numbers of special graph classes.Das Kreuzungszahlproblem wird von Graphentheoretikern seit über 60 Jahren betrachtet, jedoch ist noch immer sehr wenig über dieses einfache und zugleich hochkomplizierte Ma der Nichtplanarität bekannt. Die Aufgabenstellung ist simpel: Gegeben ein Graph, zeichnen Sie ihn mit der kleinstmöglichen Anzahl an Kantenkreuzungen. Nicht nur Graphentheoretiker sondern auch Informatiker beschäftigten sich ausgiebig mit dieser Aufgabe, denn es handelt sich dabei um ein zentrales Konzept im Chipdesign und im automatischen Graphenzeichnen. Zwar existieren Algorithmen um das Problem heuristisch zu lösen, jedoch wissen wir, dass es im Allgemeinen NP-vollständig ist. Darüberhinaus ist auch unbekannt, ob sich das Problem, außer in Spezialfällen, effizient approximieren lässt. In dieser Dissertation, versuchen wir das Problem mit Hilfe der Mathematischen Programmierung zu lösen. Wir zeigen, wie man das Kreuzungszahlproblem als verschiedene Systeme von linearen Ungleichungen formulieren kann und diskutieren wie man diese Formulierungen für nicht allzu große Graphen beweisbar optimal und in akzeptabler Zeit lösen kann - unabhängig von seiner formalen Komplexitätsklasse. Wir stellen dazu benötigte maßgeschneiderte Branch-and-Cut-and-Price Techniken vor, und präsentieren einen effizienten Algorithmus zur Vorverarbeitung; dieser ist auch für andere traditionelle Ma e der Nichtplanarität geeignet. Wir diskutieren Erweiterungen unserer Ideen für verwandte Kreuzungszahlkonzepte die in der Praxis auftreten, und zeigen eine praktische Anwendung eines vormals rein theoretisch behandelten Kreuzungszahl-Derivats auf. Diese Arbeit enthält auch eine ausführliche experimentelle Studie der präsentierten Formulierungen und Algorithmen, sowie einen Ausblick über deren mögliche Nutzung für graphentheoretische Fragen bezüglich der Kreuzungszahlen von speziellen Graphenklassen