A mixed-integer branching approach for very small formulations of disjunctive constraints

Abstract: An important problem in optimization is the construction of mixed-integer programming (MIP) formulations of disjunctive constraints that are both strong and small. Motivated by lower bounds on the number of integer variables that are required by traditional MIP formulations, we present a more general mixed-integer branching formulation framework. Our approach maintains favorable algorithmic properties of traditional MIP formulations: in particular, amenability to branch-and-bound and branch-and-cut algorithms. Our main technical result gives an explicit linear inequality description for both traditional MIP and mixed-integer branching formulations for a wide range of disjunctive constraints. The formulations obtained from this description have linear programming relaxations that are as strong as possible and generalize some of the most computationally effective formulations for piecewise linear functions and other disjunctive constraints. We use this result to produce a strong mixed-integer branching formulation for any disjunctive constraint that uses only two integer variables and a linear number of extra constraints. We sharpen this result for univariate piecewise linear functions and annulus constraints arising in power systems and robotics, producing strong mixed-integer branching formulations that use only two integer variables and a constant ($\leq 6$) number of general inequality constraints. Along the way, we produce two strong logarithmic-sized traditional MIP formulations for the annulus constraint using our main technical result, illustrating its broader utility in the traditional MIP setting.