Minimal Generating Sets of Lattice Ideals

Let $Lsubset mathbb{Z}^n$ be a lattice and $I_L=langle x^{bf u}-x^{bf v}: {bf u}-{bf v}in Lrangle$ be the corresponding lattice ideal in $Bbbk[x_1,ldots, x_n]$, where $Bbbk$ is a field. In this paper we describe minimal binomial generating sets of $I_L$ and their invariants. We use as a main tool a graph construction on equivalence classes of fibers of $I_L$. As one application of the theory developed we characterize binomial complete intersection lattice ideals, a longstanding open problem in the case of non-positive lattices.