An Explicit Formula for Vertex Enumeration in the CUT(n) Polytope via Probabilistic Methods
Abstract
We present an explicit closed-form formula for the vertices of the classical cut polytope , defined as the convex hull of cut vectors of the complete graph . Our derivation proceeds via a related polytope, denoted -, whose vertices are obtained by flipping all bits of the 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 . 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 /-polytope and offers a transparent combinatorial construction independent of enumeration algorithms.
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