All Cyclic Group Facets Inject

Abstract

We give a variant of Basu-Hildebrand-Molinaro's approximation theorem for continuous minimal valid functions for Gomory-Johnson's infinite group problem by piecewise linear two-slope extreme functions [Minimal cut-generating functions are nearly extreme, IPCO 2016]. Our theorem is for piecewise linear minimal valid functions that have only rational breakpoints (in $1/q\mathbb{Z}$ for some $q\in \mathbb{N}$) and that take rational values at the breakpoints. In contrast to Basu et al.'s construction, our construction preserves all function values on $1/q\mathbb{Z}$. As a corollary, we obtain that every extreme function for the finite group problem on $1/q\mathbb{Z}$ is the restriction of a continuous piecewise linear two-slope extreme function for the infinite group problem with breakpoints on a refinement $1/(Mq)\mathbb{Z}$ for some $M\in \mathbb{N}$. In combination with Gomory's master theorem [Some Polyhedra related to Combinatorial Problems, Lin. Alg. Appl. 2 (1969), 451-558], this shows that the infinite group problem is the correct master problem for facets (extreme functions) of 1-row group relaxations.

21 pages, 5 figures. Dedicated to Professor Ellis L. Johnson on the occasion of his eightieth birthday. v2 corrects a mistake in the subadditivity lemma (Lemma 4.4)