A characterization of unimodular hypergraphs with disjoint hyperedges

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Caoduro, Marco, Neuwohner, Meike, Paat, Joseph
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2024
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author Caoduro, Marco
Neuwohner, Meike
Paat, Joseph
author_facet Caoduro, Marco
Neuwohner, Meike
Paat, Joseph
contents The incidence matrix of a graph is totally unimodular if and only if the graph is bipartite, i.e., it contains no odd cycles. We extend the characterization of total unimodularity to hypergraphs whose hyperedges of size at least four are pairwise disjoint, which we call disjoint hypergraphs. Disjoint hypergraphs have been used to model problems with fairness constraints that ensure balanced representation. We prove that total unimodularity for disjoint hypergraphs is equivalent to forbidding both odd cycles and structures that we call odd tree houses. Our result extends to disjoint mixed hypergraphs, whose incidence matrices have $\{0, \pm1\}$-entries. As a corollary, we resolve a special case of a conjecture on almost totally unimodular matrices, originally posed by Padberg and later modified by Cornuéjols and Zuluaga.
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id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2411_10593
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A characterization of unimodular hypergraphs with disjoint hyperedges
Caoduro, Marco
Neuwohner, Meike
Paat, Joseph
Combinatorics
Optimization and Control
The incidence matrix of a graph is totally unimodular if and only if the graph is bipartite, i.e., it contains no odd cycles. We extend the characterization of total unimodularity to hypergraphs whose hyperedges of size at least four are pairwise disjoint, which we call disjoint hypergraphs. Disjoint hypergraphs have been used to model problems with fairness constraints that ensure balanced representation. We prove that total unimodularity for disjoint hypergraphs is equivalent to forbidding both odd cycles and structures that we call odd tree houses. Our result extends to disjoint mixed hypergraphs, whose incidence matrices have $\{0, \pm1\}$-entries. As a corollary, we resolve a special case of a conjecture on almost totally unimodular matrices, originally posed by Padberg and later modified by Cornuéjols and Zuluaga.
title A characterization of unimodular hypergraphs with disjoint hyperedges
topic Combinatorics
Optimization and Control
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.10593