Toric ideals associated with gap-free graphs

Abstract: In this article we prove that every toric ideal associated with a gap-free graph $G$ has a squarefree lexicographic initial ideal. Moreover, in the particular case when the complementary graph of $G$ is chordal (i.e. when the edge ideal of $G$ has a linear resolution), we show that there exists a reduced Gr\"obner basis $\mathcal{G}$ of the toric ideal of $G$ such that all the monomials in the support of $\mathcal{G}$ are squarefree. Finally, we show (using work by Herzog and Hibi) that if $I$ is a monomial ideal generated in degree 2, then $I$ has a linear resolution if and only if all powers of $I$ have linear quotients, thus extending a result by Herzog, Hibi and Zheng.