9 research outputs found
The matching polytope does not admit fully-polynomial size relaxation schemes
The groundbreaking work of Rothvo{\ss} [arxiv:1311.2369] established that
every linear program expressing the matching polytope has an exponential number
of inequalities (formally, the matching polytope has exponential extension
complexity). We generalize this result by deriving strong bounds on the
polyhedral inapproximability of the matching polytope: for fixed , every polyhedral -approximation
requires an exponential number of inequalities, where is the number of
vertices. This is sharp given the well-known -approximation of size
provided by the odd-sets of size up to
. Thus matching is the first problem in , whose natural
linear encoding does not admit a fully polynomial-size relaxation scheme (the
polyhedral equivalent of an FPTAS), which provides a sharp separation from the
polynomial-size relaxation scheme obtained e.g., via constant-sized odd-sets
mentioned above.
Our approach reuses ideas from Rothvo{\ss} [arxiv:1311.2369], however the
main lower bounding technique is different. While the original proof is based
on the hyperplane separation bound (also called the rectangle corruption
bound), we employ the information-theoretic notion of common information as
introduced in Braun and Pokutta [http://eccc.hpi-web.de/report/2013/056/],
which allows to analyze perturbations of slack matrices. It turns out that the
high extension complexity for the matching polytope stem from the same source
of hardness as for the correlation polytope: a direct sum structure.Comment: 21 pages, 3 figure
Extended Formulation Lower Bounds via Hypergraph Coloring?
Exploring the power of linear programming for combinatorial optimization
problems has been recently receiving renewed attention after a series of
breakthrough impossibility results. From an algorithmic perspective, the
related questions concern whether there are compact formulations even for
problems that are known to admit polynomial-time algorithms.
We propose a framework for proving lower bounds on the size of extended
formulations. We do so by introducing a specific type of extended relaxations
that we call product relaxations and is motivated by the study of the
Sherali-Adams (SA) hierarchy. Then we show that for every approximate
relaxation of a polytope P, there is a product relaxation that has the same
size and is at least as strong. We provide a methodology for proving lower
bounds on the size of approximate product relaxations by lower bounding the
chromatic number of an underlying hypergraph, whose vertices correspond to
gap-inducing vectors.
We extend the definition of product relaxations and our methodology to mixed
integer sets. However in this case we are able to show that mixed product
relaxations are at least as powerful as a special family of extended
formulations. As an application of our method we show an exponential lower
bound on the size of approximate mixed product formulations for the metric
capacitated facility location problem, a problem which seems to be intractable
for linear programming as far as constant-gap compact formulations are
concerned
Average case polyhedral complexity of the maximum stable set problem
We study the minimum number of constraints needed to formulate random
instances of the maximum stable set problem via linear programs (LPs), in two
distinct models. In the uniform model, the constraints of the LP are not
allowed to depend on the input graph, which should be encoded solely in the
objective function. There we prove a lower bound with
probability at least for every LP that is exact for a randomly
selected set of instances; each graph on at most n vertices being selected
independently with probability . In the
non-uniform model, the constraints of the LP may depend on the input graph, but
we allow weights on the vertices. The input graph is sampled according to the
G(n, p) model. There we obtain upper and lower bounds holding with high
probability for various ranges of p. We obtain a super-polynomial lower bound
all the way from to . Our upper bound is close to this as there is only an essentially quadratic
gap in the exponent, which currently also exists in the worst-case model.
Finally, we state a conjecture that would close this gap, both in the
average-case and worst-case models
Lifting Linear Extension Complexity Bounds to the Mixed-Integer Setting
Mixed-integer mathematical programs are among the most commonly used models
for a wide set of problems in Operations Research and related fields. However,
there is still very little known about what can be expressed by small
mixed-integer programs. In particular, prior to this work, it was open whether
some classical problems, like the minimum odd-cut problem, can be expressed by
a compact mixed-integer program with few (even constantly many) integer
variables. This is in stark contrast to linear formulations, where recent
breakthroughs in the field of extended formulations have shown that many
polytopes associated to classical combinatorial optimization problems do not
even admit approximate extended formulations of sub-exponential size.
We provide a general framework for lifting inapproximability results of
extended formulations to the setting of mixed-integer extended formulations,
and obtain almost tight lower bounds on the number of integer variables needed
to describe a variety of classical combinatorial optimization problems. Among
the implications we obtain, we show that any mixed-integer extended formulation
of sub-exponential size for the matching polytope, cut polytope, traveling
salesman polytope or dominant of the odd-cut polytope, needs many integer variables, where is the number of vertices of the
underlying graph. Conversely, the above-mentioned polyhedra admit
polynomial-size mixed-integer formulations with only or (for the traveling salesman polytope) many integer variables.
Our results build upon a new decomposition technique that, for any convex set
, allows for approximating any mixed-integer description of by the
intersection of with the union of a small number of affine subspaces.Comment: A conference version of this paper will be presented at SODA 201
Interactions entre les Cliques et les Stables dans un Graphe
This thesis is concerned with different types of interactions between cliques and stable sets, two very important objects in graph theory, as well as with the connections between these interactions. At first, we study the classical problem of graph coloring, which can be stated in terms of partioning the vertices of the graph into stable sets. We present a coloring result for graphs with no triangle and no induced cycle of even length at least six. Secondly, we study the Erdös-Hajnal property, which asserts that the maximum size of a clique or a stable set is polynomial (instead of logarithmic in random graphs). We prove that the property holds for graphs with no induced path on k vertices and its complement.Then, we study the Clique-Stable Set Separation, which is a less known problem. The question is about the order of magnitude of the number of cuts needed to separate all the cliques from all the stable sets. This notion was introduced by Yannakakis when he studied extended formulations of the stable set polytope in perfect graphs. He proved that a quasi-polynomial number of cuts is always enough, and he asked if a polynomial number of cuts could suffice. Göös has just given a negative answer, but the question is open for restricted classes of graphs, in particular for perfect graphs. We prove that a polynomial number of cuts is enough for random graphs, and in several hereditary classes. To this end, some tools developed in the study of the Erdös-Hajnal property appear to be very helpful. We also establish the equivalence between the Clique-Stable set Separation problem and two other statements: the generalized Alon-Saks-Seymour conjecture and the Stubborn Problem, a Constraint Satisfaction Problem.Cette thĂšse s'intĂ©resse Ă diffĂ©rents types d'interactions entre les cliques et les stables, deux objets trĂšs importants en thĂ©orie des graphes, ainsi qu'aux relations entre ces diffĂ©rentes interactions. En premier lieu, nous nous intĂ©ressons au problĂšme classique de coloration de graphes, qui peut s'exprimer comme une partition des sommets du graphe en stables. Nous prĂ©sentons un rĂ©sultat de coloration pour les graphes sans triangles ni cycles pairs de longueur au moins 6. Dans un deuxiĂšme temps, nous prouvons la propriĂ©tĂ© d'Erdös-Hajnal, qui affirme que la taille maximale d'une clique ou d'un stable devient polynomiale (contre logarithmique dans les graphes alĂ©atoires) dans le cas des graphes sans chemin induit Ă k sommets ni son complĂ©mentaire, quel que soit k.Enfin, un problĂšme moins connu est la Clique-Stable sĂ©paration, oĂč l'on cherche un ensemble de coupes permettant de sĂ©parer toute clique de tout stable. Cette notion a Ă©tĂ© introduite par Yannakakis lors de lâĂ©tude des formulations Ă©tendues du polytope des stables dans un graphe parfait. Il prouve quâil existe toujours un sĂ©parateur Clique-Stable de taille quasi-polynomiale, et se demande si l'on peut se limiter Ă une taille polynomiale. Göös a rĂ©cemment fourni une rĂ©ponse nĂ©gative, mais la question se pose encore pour des classes de graphes restreintes, en particulier pour les graphes parfaits. Nous prouvons une borne polynomiale pour la Clique-Stable sĂ©paration dans les graphes alĂ©atoires et dans plusieurs classes hĂ©rĂ©ditaires, en utilisant notamment des outils communs Ă l'Ă©tude de la conjecture d'Erdös-Hajnal. Nous dĂ©crivons Ă©galement une Ă©quivalence entre la Clique-Stable sĂ©paration et deux autres problĂšmes : la conjecture d'Alon-Saks-Seymour gĂ©nĂ©ralisĂ©e et le ProblĂšme TĂȘtu, un problĂšme de Satisfaction de Contraintes