On lattice width of lattice-free polyhedra and height of Hilbert bases

Abstract

We study the lattice width of lattice-free polyhedra given by $\mathbf{Ax}\le \mathbf{b}$ in terms of $\Delta (\mathbf{A})$, the maximal $n\times n$ minor in absolute value of $\mathbf{A}\in {\mathbb{Z}}^{m\times n}$. Our main contribution is to link the lattice width of lattice-free polyhedra to the height of Hilbert bases and to the diameter of finite abelian groups. This leads to a bound on the lattice width of lattice-free pyramids which solely depends on $\Delta (\mathbf{A})$ provided a conjecture regarding the height of Hilbert bases holds. Further, we exploit a combination of techniques to obtain novel bounds on the lattice width of simplices. A second part of the paper is devoted to a study of the above mentioned Hilbert basis conjecture. We give a complete characterization of the Hilbert basis if $\Delta (\mathbf{A})=2$ which implies the conjecture in that case and prove its validity for simplicial cones.