Edges versus circuits: a hierarchy of diameters in polyhedra

Abstract

Abstract The study of the graph diameter of polytopes is a classical open problem in polyhedral geometry and the theory of linear optimization. In this paper we continue the investigation initiated in [5] by introducing a vast hierarchy of generalizations to the notion of graph diameter. This hierarchy provides some interesting lower bounds for the usual graph diameter. After explaining the structure of the hierarchy and discussing these bounds, we focus on clearly explaining the differences and similarities among the many diameter notions of our hierarchy. Finally, we fully characterize the hierarchy in dimension two. It collapses into fewer categories, for which we exhibit the ranges of values that can be realized as diameters.