T-space and cutting planes (Q1424274)

The T-space [\textit{R. E. Gomory}, Some polyhedra related to combinatorial problems. Combinat. Struct. Appl., Proc. Calgary internat. Conf. combinat. Struct. Appl., Calgary 1969), 117 (1970; Zbl 0245.90019)] associated to an integer programming problem IP is the ambient space of integer coefficients of group elements of the group relaxation of IP. If the group elements, multiplied by some coefficients from T-space, sum up to a fixed right hand side group element, then a basic feasible solution in the corner polyhedron associated to a basic feasible solution of the LP relaxation can be reconstructed. This solution is integral but maybe negative on the basic varibles. In this paper, structural results about T-space are reviewed. They can be used to construct a variety of cutting planes for the original IP. In order to rank this abundance of cuts, the authors introduce a merit index, based on Gomory's shooting theorem. A section on challenges concludes the paper.