English

An update on the Hirsch conjecture

Combinatorics 2013-10-29 v2 Optimization and Control

Abstract

The Hirsch conjecture was posed in 1957 in a letter from Warren M. Hirsch to George Dantzig. It states that the graph of a d-dimensional polytope with n facets cannot have diameter greater than n - d. Despite being one of the most fundamental, basic and old problems in polytope theory, what we know is quite scarce. Most notably, no polynomial upper bound is known for the diameters that are conjectured to be linear. In contrast, very few polytopes are known where the bound ndn-d is attained. This paper collects known results and remarks both on the positive and on the negative side of the conjecture. Some proofs are included, but only those that we hope are accessible to a general mathematical audience without introducing too many technicalities.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0907.1186,
  title  = {An update on the Hirsch conjecture},
  author = {Edward D. Kim and Francisco Santos},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0907.1186},
  year   = {2013}
}

Comments

28 pages, 6 figures. Many proofs have been taken out from version 2 and put into the appendix arXiv:0912.4235

R2 v1 2026-06-21T13:22:24.521Z