462 research outputs found
An update on the Hirsch conjecture
The Hirsch conjecture was posed in 1957 in a letter from Warren M. Hirsch to
George Dantzig. It states that the graph of a d-dimensional polytope with n
facets cannot have diameter greater than n - d.
Despite being one of the most fundamental, basic and old problems in polytope
theory, what we know is quite scarce. Most notably, no polynomial upper bound
is known for the diameters that are conjectured to be linear. In contrast, very
few polytopes are known where the bound is attained. This paper collects
known results and remarks both on the positive and on the negative side of the
conjecture. Some proofs are included, but only those that we hope are
accessible to a general mathematical audience without introducing too many
technicalities.Comment: 28 pages, 6 figures. Many proofs have been taken out from version 2
and put into the appendix arXiv:0912.423
Computing largest circles separating two sets of segments
A circle separates two planar sets if it encloses one of the sets and its
open interior disk does not meet the other set. A separating circle is a
largest one if it cannot be locally increased while still separating the two
given sets. An Theta(n log n) optimal algorithm is proposed to find all largest
circles separating two given sets of line segments when line segments are
allowed to meet only at their endpoints. In the general case, when line
segments may intersect times, our algorithm can be adapted to
work in O(n alpha(n) log n) time and O(n \alpha(n)) space, where alpha(n)
represents the extremely slowly growing inverse of the Ackermann function.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures, abstract presented at 8th Canadian Conference on
Computational Geometry, 199
Quantum Random Access Codes with Shared Randomness
We consider a communication method, where the sender encodes n classical bits
into 1 qubit and sends it to the receiver who performs a certain measurement
depending on which of the initial bits must be recovered. This procedure is
called (n,1,p) quantum random access code (QRAC) where p > 1/2 is its success
probability. It is known that (2,1,0.85) and (3,1,0.79) QRACs (with no
classical counterparts) exist and that (4,1,p) QRAC with p > 1/2 is not
possible.
We extend this model with shared randomness (SR) that is accessible to both
parties. Then (n,1,p) QRAC with SR and p > 1/2 exists for any n > 0. We give an
upper bound on its success probability (the known (2,1,0.85) and (3,1,0.79)
QRACs match this upper bound). We discuss some particular constructions for
several small values of n.
We also study the classical counterpart of this model where n bits are
encoded into 1 bit instead of 1 qubit and SR is used. We give an optimal
construction for such codes and find their success probability exactly--it is
less than in the quantum case.
Interactive 3D quantum random access codes are available on-line at
http://home.lanet.lv/~sd20008/racs .Comment: 51 pages, 33 figures. New sections added: 1.2, 3.5, 3.8.2, 5.4 (paper
appears to be shorter because of smaller margins). Submitted as M.Math thesis
at University of Waterloo by M
Coordination motifs and large-scale structural organization in atomic clusters
The structure of nanoclusters is complex to describe due to their
noncrystallinity, even though bonding and packing constraints limit the local
atomic arrangements to only a few types. A computational scheme is presented to
extract coordination motifs from sample atomic configurations. The method is
based on a clustering analysis of multipole moments for atoms in the first
coodination shell. Its power to capture large-scale structural properties is
demonstrated by scanning through the ground state of the Lennard-Jones and
C clusters collected at the Cambridge Cluster Database.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figure
Recent progress on the combinatorial diameter of polytopes and simplicial complexes
The Hirsch conjecture, posed in 1957, stated that the graph of a
-dimensional polytope or polyhedron with facets cannot have diameter
greater than . 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 some try
to shed light on the question by generalizing it to simplicial complexes. In
particular, we include here our recent and previously unpublished proof that
the maximum diameter of arbitrary simplicial complexes is in and
we summarize the main ideas in the polymath 3 project, a web-based collective
effort trying to prove an upper bound of type nd for the diameters of polyhedra
and of more general objects (including, e. g., simplicial manifolds).Comment: 34 pages. This paper supersedes one cited as "On the maximum diameter
of simplicial complexes and abstractions of them, in preparation
Continuously Flattening Polyhedra Using Straight Skeletons
We prove that a surprisingly simple algorithm folds the surface of every convex polyhedron, in any dimension, into a flat folding by a continuous motion, while preserving intrinsic distances and avoiding crossings. The flattening respects the straight-skeleton gluing, meaning that points of the polyhedron touched by a common ball inside the polyhedron come into contact in the flat folding, which answers an open question in the book Geometric Folding Algorithms. The primary creases in our folding process can be found in quadratic time, though necessarily, creases must roll continuously, and we show that the full crease pattern can be exponential in size. We show that our method solves the fold-and-cut problem for convex polyhedra in any dimension. As an additional application, we show how a limiting form of our algorithm gives a general design technique for flat origami tessellations, for any spiderweb (planar graph with all-positive equilibrium stress)
Steinitz Theorems for Orthogonal Polyhedra
We define a simple orthogonal polyhedron to be a three-dimensional polyhedron
with the topology of a sphere in which three mutually-perpendicular edges meet
at each vertex. By analogy to Steinitz's theorem characterizing the graphs of
convex polyhedra, we find graph-theoretic characterizations of three classes of
simple orthogonal polyhedra: corner polyhedra, which can be drawn by isometric
projection in the plane with only one hidden vertex, xyz polyhedra, in which
each axis-parallel line through a vertex contains exactly one other vertex, and
arbitrary simple orthogonal polyhedra. In particular, the graphs of xyz
polyhedra are exactly the bipartite cubic polyhedral graphs, and every
bipartite cubic polyhedral graph with a 4-connected dual graph is the graph of
a corner polyhedron. Based on our characterizations we find efficient
algorithms for constructing orthogonal polyhedra from their graphs.Comment: 48 pages, 31 figure
Unveiling The Tree: A Convex Framework for Sparse Problems
This paper presents a general framework for generating greedy algorithms for
solving convex constraint satisfaction problems for sparse solutions by mapping
the satisfaction problem into one of graph traversal on a rooted tree of
unknown topology. For every pre-walk of the tree an initial set of generally
dense feasible solutions is processed in such a way that the sparsity of each
solution increases with each generation unveiled. The specific computation
performed at any particular child node is shown to correspond to an embedding
of a polytope into the polytope received from that nodes parent. Several issues
related to pre-walk order selection, computational complexity and tractability,
and the use of heuristic and/or side information is discussed. An example of a
single-path, depth-first algorithm on a tree with randomized vertex reduction
and a run-time path selection algorithm is presented in the context of sparse
lowpass filter design
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