A matrix \( M \in \{0,1\}^{m \times n} \) is regular if the binary matroid represented by \( M \) is representable over every field. This is equivalent to requiring that the matroid is equal to the ternary matroid represented by the Camion-signed version \( M' \) of \( M \), and thus equivalent to total unimodularity of \( M' \).

Recognizing Binary Regular Matrices

The command

cmr-regular IN-MAT [OPTION...]

determines whether the matrix given in file IN-MAT is regular.

Options:

-i FORMAT Format of file IN-MAT; default: dense.
-D OUT-DEC Write a decomposition tree of the regular matroid to file OUT-DEC; default: skip computation.
-N NON-MINOR Write a minimal non-regular submatrix to file NON-SUB; default: skip computation.

Advanced options:

--stats Print statistics about the computation to stderr.
--time-limit LIMIT Allow at most LIMIT seconds for the computation.
--no-direct-graphic Check only 3-connected matrices for regularity.
--no-series-parallel Do not allow series-parallel operations in decomposition tree.

Formats for matrices: dense, sparse If IN-MAT is - then the matrix is read from stdin. If OUT-DEC or NON-SUB is - then the decomposition tree (resp. the submatrix) is written to stdout.

Algorithm

The implemented recognition algorithm is based on Implementation of a unimodularity test by Matthias Walter and Klaus Truemper (Mathematical Programming Computation, 2013). It is based on Seymour's decomposition theorem for regular matroids. The algorithm runs in \( \mathcal{O}( (m+n)^5 ) \) time and is a simplified version of Truemper's cubic algorithm. Please cite the following paper in case the implementation contributed to your research:

@Article{WalterT13,
  author    = {Walter, Matthias and Truemper, Klaus},
  title     = {Implementation of a unimodularity test},
  journal   = {Mathematical Programming Computation},
  year      = {2013},
  volume    = {5},
  number    = {1},
  pages     = {57--73},
  issn      = {1867-2949},
  doi       = {10.1007/s12532-012-0048-x},
  publisher = {Springer-Verlag},
}

C Interface

The corresponding function in the library is

CMRregularTest() tests a binary matrix for regularity.

and is defined in regular.h.