Extension complexity of stable set polytopes of bipartite graphs

The extension complexity $mathsf{xc}(P)$ of a polytope $P$ is the minimum number of facets of a polytope that affinely projects to $P$. Let $G$ be a bipartite graph with $n$ vertices, $m$ edges, and no isolated vertices. Let $mathsf{STAB}(G)$ be the convex hull of the stable sets of $G$. It is easy to see that $n leqslant mathsf{xc} (mathsf{STAB}(G)) leqslant n+m$. We improve both of these bounds. For the upper bound, we show that $mathsf{xc} (mathsf{STAB}(G))$ is $O(frac{n^2}{log n})$, which is an improvement when $G$ has quadratically many edges. For the lower bound, we prove that $mathsf{xc} (mathsf{STAB}(G))$ is $Omega(n log n)$ when $G$ is the incidence graph of a finite projective plane. We also provide examples of $3$-regular bipartite graphs $G$ such that the edge vs stable set matrix of $G$ has a fooling set of size $|E(G)|$.