Discrete convexity and unimodularity. I. (Q1763636)

A subset of the lattice \(\mathbb{Z}^{n}\) is called pseudo-convex if its convex hull is a polyhedron which does not contain any additional lattice points. The authors study classes of pseudoconvex sets with the property that the sum of two members is again pseudo-convex. This is equivalent to saying that any two disjoint sets of the class may be separated by an integer linear functional. Such a class is called an ample DC-class if it is closed with respect to integer translation, reflection at the origin, and faces. It is shown that ample DC-classes are in one-to-one correspondence with pure systems. (These are certain collections of linear subspaces.) As an important instance of pure systems, unimodular systems are investigated. (They are closely related to matrices whose minors are equal to \(0\) or \(\pm 1\).)