Solving 4-Block Integer Linear Programs Faster Using Affine Decompositions of the Right-Hand Sides

TL;DR

This paper introduces a faster algorithm for 4-block integer linear programming that overcomes previous runtime barriers, handles large coefficients efficiently, and extends existing n-fold ILP techniques through affine decompositions and dynamic encoding.

Contribution

It presents a novel algorithm with improved runtime for 4-block ILPs, capable of handling large coefficients, and extends n-fold ILP methods via affine decompositions and face guessing techniques.

Findings

Achieves runtime of f(k,Δ)·n^{k+O(1)} for 4-block ILPs.

First algorithm to handle large coefficients with polynomial dependence on encoding length.

Extends n-fold ILP algorithms using affine vector rearrangement and face guessing.

Abstract

We present a new and faster algorithm for the 4-block integer linear programming problem, overcoming the long-standing runtime barrier faced by previous algorithms that rely on Graver complexity or proximity bounds. The 4-block integer linear programming problem asks to compute $\min\{c_0^\top x_0+c_1^\top x_1+\dots+c_n^\top x_n\ \vert\ Ax_0+Bx_1+\dots+Bx_n=b_0,\ Cx_0+Dx_i=b_i\ \forall i\in[n],\ (x_0,x_1,\dots,x_n)\in\mathbb Z_{\ge0}^{(1+n)k}\}$ for some $k\times k$ matrices $A,B,C,D$ with coefficients bounded by $\overline\Delta$ in absolute value. Our algorithm runs in time $f(k,\overline\Delta)\cdot n^{k+\mathcal O(1)}$, improving upon the previous best running time of $f(k,\overline\Delta)\cdot n^{k^2+\mathcal O(1)}$ [Oertel, Paat, and Weismantel (Math. Prog. 2024), Chen, Kouteck\'y, Xu, and Shi (ESA 2020)]. Further, we give the first algorithm that can handle large coefficients in $A, B$ and $C$, that is, it has a running time that depends only polynomially on the encoding length of these coefficients. We obtain these results by extending the $n$-fold integer linear programming algorithm of Cslovjecsek, Kouteck\'y, Lassota, Pilipczuk, and Polak (SODA 2024) to incorporate additional global variables $x_0$. The central technical result is showing that the exhaustive use of the vector rearrangement lemma of Cslovjecsek, Eisenbrand, Pilipczuk, Venzin, and Weismantel (ESA 2021) can be made \emph{affine} by carefully guessing both the residue of the global variables modulo a large modulus and a face in a suitable hyperplane arrangement among a sufficiently small number of candidates. This facilitates a dynamic high-multiplicy encoding of a \emph{faithfully decomposed} $n$-fold ILP with bounded right-hand sides, which we can solve efficiently for each such guess.