A New Face Iterator for Polyhedra and for More General Finite Locally Branched Lattices

Abstract

We discuss a new memory-efficient depth-first algorithm and its implementation that iterates over all elements of a finite locally branched lattice. This algorithm can be applied to face lattices of polyhedra and to various generalizations such as finite polyhedral complexes and subdivisions of manifolds, extended tight spans and closed sets of matroids. Its practical implementation is very fast compared to state-of-the-art implementations of previously considered algorithms. Based on recent work of Bruns, García-Sánchez, O’Neill, and Wilburne, we apply this algorithm to prove Wilf’s conjecture for all numerical semigroups of multiplicity 19 by iterating through the faces of the Kunz cone and identifying the possible bad faces and then checking that these do not yield counterexamples to Wilf’s conjecture.