On packing and covering polyhedra of consecutive ones circulant clutters

Building on work by G. Cornuéjols and B. Novick and by L. Trotter, we give different characterizations of contractions of consecutive ones circulant clutters that give back consecutive ones circulant clutters. Based on a recent result by G. Argiroffo and S. Bianchi, we then arrive at characterizations of the vertices of the fractional set covering polyhedron of these clutters. We obtain similar characterizations for the fractional set packing polyhedron using a result by F.B. Shepherd, and relate our findings with similar ones obtained by A. Wagler for the clique relaxation of the stable set polytope of webs. Finally, we show how our results can be used to obtain some old and new results on the corresponding fractional set covering polyhedron using properties of Farey series. Our results do not depend on Lehman’s work or blocker/antiblocker duality, as is traditional in the field.