Stefan Weltge, The relaxation complexity of the standard simplex is logarithmic

For a set $X$ of integer points, the relaxation complexity $\operatorname{rc}(X)$ is the smallest number of facets of any polyhedron P whose integer points are precisely those of X. In this paper, we focus on the case where X is the discrete standard simplex $\Delta_d = \{0, e_1, …, e_d\}$. We show that $\operatorname{rc}(\Delta_d) = O(\log d)$ by an explicit, elementary construction. This improves upon the previously best-known upper bound $\operatorname{rc}(\Delta_d) = O(d / \sqrt{\log d})$ due to Aprile, Averkov, Di Summa, and Hojny (2022) and matches an asymptotic lower bound by Averkov and Schymura (2020). This is joint work with Simon Keil.