Toric ideals of graphs minimally generated by a Gr\"obner basis

Abstract

Describing families of ideals that are minimally generated by at least one, or by all, of their reduced Gr\"obner bases is a central topic in commutative algebra. In this paper, we address this problem in the context of toric ideals of graphs. We say that a graph $G$ is an MG-graph if its toric ideal $I_G$ is minimally generated by some Gr\"obner basis, and a UMG-graph if every reduced Gr\"obner basis of $I_G$ forms a minimal generating set. We prove that a graph $G$ is a UMG-graph if and only if its toric ideal $I_G$ is a generalized robust ideal (that is, its universal Gr\"obner basis coincides with its universal Markov basis). Although the class of MG-graphs is not closed under taking subgraphs, we prove that it is hereditary, that is, closed under taking induced subgraphs. In addition, we describe two families of bipartite MG-graphs: ring graphs (which correspond to complete intersection toric ideals, as shown by Gitler, Reyes, and Villarreal) and graphs in which all chordless cycles have the same length. The latter extends a result of Ohsugi and Hibi, which corresponds to graphs whose chordless cycles are all of length $4$.