English

Higher determinants and the matrix-tree theorem

Combinatorics 2016-12-14 v2

Abstract

The classical matrix-tree theorem was discovered by G.~Kirchhoff in 1847. It relates the principal minor of the Laplace (nxn)-matrix to a particular sum of monomials indexed by the set of trees with n vertices. The aim of this paper is to present a generalization of the (nonsymmetric) matrix-tree theorem containing no trees and essentially no matrices. Instead of trees we consider acyclic directed graphs with a prescribed set of sinks, and instead of determinant, a polynomial invariant of the matrix determined by directed graph such that any two vertices of the same connected component are mutually reacheable.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1508.02245,
  title  = {Higher determinants and the matrix-tree theorem},
  author = {Yurii Burman},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1508.02245},
  year   = {2016}
}

Comments

Most of the material, with better proofs, was superseded by the later preprint http://arxiv.org/abs/1612.03873 ; take it instead

R2 v1 2026-06-22T10:30:00.416Z