The Augmentation Property of Binary Matrices for the Binary and Boolean Rank

Abstract: We define the Augmentation property for binary matrices with respect to different rank functions. A matrix $A$ has the Augmentation property for a given rank function, if for any subset of column vectors $x_1,...,x_t$ for for which the rank of $A$ does not increase when augmented separately with each of the vectors $x_i$, $1\leq i \leq t$, it also holds that the rank does not increase when augmenting $A$ with all vectors $x_1,...,x_t$ simultaneously. This property holds trivially for the usual linear rank over the reals, but as we show, things change significantly when considering the binary and boolean rank of a matrix. We prove a necessary and sufficient condition for this property to hold under the binary and boolean rank of binary matrices. Namely, a matrix has the Augmentation property for these rank functions if and only if it has a unique base that spans all other bases of the matrix with respect to the given rank function. For the binary rank, we also present a concrete characterization of a family of matrices that has the Augmentation property. This characterization is based on the possible types of linear dependencies between rows of $V$, in optimal binary decompositions of the matrix as $A=U\cdot V$. Furthermore, we use the Augmentation property to construct simple families of matrices, for which there is a gap between their real and binary rank and between their real and boolean rank.