Implied Integrality in Mixed-Integer Optimization

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: van der Hulst, Rolf, Walter, Matthias
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author van der Hulst, Rolf
Walter, Matthias
author_facet van der Hulst, Rolf
Walter, Matthias
contents Implied-integer detection is a well-known presolving technique that is used by many Mixed-Integer Linear Programming solvers. Informally, a variable is said to be implied integer if its integrality is enforced implicitly by integrality of other variables and the constraints of a problem. In this work we formalize the definition of implied integrality by taking a polyhedral perspective. Our main result characterizes implied integrality as occurring when a subset of integer variables is fixed to integer values and the polyhedron on the remaining variables is integral. While integral polyhedra are well-understood theoretically, existing detection methods infer implied integrality only for one variable at a time. We introduce new detection methods based on the detection of integral polyhedra, extending existing techniques to multiple variables. Additionally, we discuss the computational complexity of recognizing implied integers. We conduct experiments using a new detection method that uses totally unimodular submatrices to identify implied integrality. For the MIPLIB 2017 collection dataset our results indicate that, on average, 18.8% of the variables are classified as implied integer after presolving, compared to just 3.3% identified by state-of-the-art techniques. Moreover, we are able to reduce the average percentage of variables whose integrality needs to be enforced after presolving from 70.2% to 59.0%.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2504_07209
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Implied Integrality in Mixed-Integer Optimization
van der Hulst, Rolf
Walter, Matthias
Discrete Mathematics
Optimization and Control
90C11 (Primary) 90C10, 90C57 (Secondary)
Implied-integer detection is a well-known presolving technique that is used by many Mixed-Integer Linear Programming solvers. Informally, a variable is said to be implied integer if its integrality is enforced implicitly by integrality of other variables and the constraints of a problem. In this work we formalize the definition of implied integrality by taking a polyhedral perspective. Our main result characterizes implied integrality as occurring when a subset of integer variables is fixed to integer values and the polyhedron on the remaining variables is integral. While integral polyhedra are well-understood theoretically, existing detection methods infer implied integrality only for one variable at a time. We introduce new detection methods based on the detection of integral polyhedra, extending existing techniques to multiple variables. Additionally, we discuss the computational complexity of recognizing implied integers. We conduct experiments using a new detection method that uses totally unimodular submatrices to identify implied integrality. For the MIPLIB 2017 collection dataset our results indicate that, on average, 18.8% of the variables are classified as implied integer after presolving, compared to just 3.3% identified by state-of-the-art techniques. Moreover, we are able to reduce the average percentage of variables whose integrality needs to be enforced after presolving from 70.2% to 59.0%.
title Implied Integrality in Mixed-Integer Optimization
topic Discrete Mathematics
Optimization and Control
90C11 (Primary) 90C10, 90C57 (Secondary)
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.07209