Robust Graph Ideals

Let I be a toric ideal. We say I is robust if its universal Gröbner basis is a minimal generating set. We show that any robust toric ideal arising from a graph G is also minimally generated by its Graver basis. We then completely characterize all graphs which give rise to robust ideals. Our characterization shows that robustness can be determined solely in terms of graph-theoretic conditions on the set of circuits of G .