Toric ideals and their circuits

Abstract

In this paper, we study toric ideals generated by circuits. For toric ideals which have squarefree quadratic initial ideals, a sufficient condition to be generated by circuits is given. In particular, squarefree Veronese subrings, the second Veronese subrings and configurations arising from root systems satisfy the condition. In addition, we study toric ideals of finite graphs and characterize the graphs whose toric ideals are generated by circuits u -v such that either u or v is squarefree. There exists several classes of graphs whose toric ideals satisfy this condition and whose toric rings are nonnormal.