Polyhedral Approach to Integer Partitions

Vladimir A. Shlyk1
1Institute of Mathematics National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, 11 Surganova Street, Minsk, 220072, Belarus

Abstract

This paper develops the polyhedral approach to integer partitions. We consider the set of partitions of an integer \( n \) as a polytope \( P_n \subset \mathbb{R}^n \). Vertices of \( P_n \) form the class of partitions that provide the first basis for the whole set of partitions of \( n \). Moreover, we show that there exists a subclass of vertices, from which all others can be generated with the use of two combinatorial operations. The calculation demonstrates a considerable decrease in the cardinality of these classes of basic partitions as \( n \) grows. We focus on the vertex enumeration problem for \( P_n \). We prove that vertices of all partition polytopes form a partition ideal of the Andrews partition lattice. This allows us to construct vertices of \( P_n \) by a lifting method, which requires examining only certain partitions of \( n \). A criterion of whether a given partition is a convex combination of two others connects vertices with knapsack partitions, sum-free sets, Sidon sets, and Sidon multisets introduced in the paper. All but a few non-vertices for small \( n \)’s were recognized with its help. We also prove several easy-to-check necessary conditions for a partition to be a vertex.