English

An Explicit Formula for Vertex Enumeration in the CUT(n) Polytope via Probabilistic Methods

Combinatorics 2025-07-22 v2 Discrete Mathematics Optimization and Control Probability

Abstract

We present an explicit closed-form formula for the vertices of the classical cut polytope CUT(n)\operatorname{CUT}(n), defined as the convex hull of cut vectors of the complete graph KnK_n. Our derivation proceeds via a related polytope, denoted 1\mathbf{1}-CUT(n)\operatorname{CUT}(n), whose vertices are obtained by flipping all bits of the CUT(n)\operatorname{CUT}(n) vertices. This polytope arises naturally in a probabilistic context involving agreement probabilities among symmetric Bernoulli random variables which serves as the starting point of this work. Our approach constructs the vertex set recursively via a binary encoding that stems from this probabilistic perspective. We prove that the resulting sequence of encoded integers, when appropriately scaled, exhibits an almost-linear behavior closely approximating the line y=x12y = x - \frac{1}{2}. This structure motivates the introduction of the alternating cycle function, an integer-valued map whose key property is power-of-two composition invariance. The function serves as the foundation for our closed-form enumeration formula. The result provides a rare instance of explicit vertex characterization for a 00/11-polytope and offers a transparent combinatorial construction independent of enumeration algorithms.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2506.21787,
  title  = {An Explicit Formula for Vertex Enumeration in the CUT(n) Polytope via Probabilistic Methods},
  author = {Nevena Marić},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2506.21787},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

19 pages, 3 figures

R2 v1 2026-07-01T03:35:30.215Z