Structural properties and recognition of restricted and strongly unimodular matrices

A (0, ±1) matrix A is restricted unimodular if every matrix obtained from A by setting to zero any subset of its entries is totally unimodular. Restricted unimodular matrices are also known as matrices without odd cycles. They have been studied by Commoner and recently Yannakakis has given a polynomial algorithm to recognize when a matrix belongs to this class. A matrix A is strongly unimodular if any matrix obtained from A by setting at most one of its entries to zero is totally unimodular. Crama et al. have shown that (0,1) matrix A is strongly unimodular if and only if any basis of (A, 1) is triangular, whereI is an identity matrix of suitable dimensions. In this paper we give a very simple algorithm to test whether a matrix is restricted unimodular and we show that all strongly unimodular matrices can be obtained by composing restricted unimodular matrices with a simple operation. Partially supported by a New York University Research Challenge Fund Grant.