English

Minors of matroids represented by sparse random matrices over finite fields

Combinatorics 2024-01-22 v2

Abstract

Consider a random n×mn\times m matrix AA over the finite field of order qq where every column has precisely kk nonzero elements, and let M[A]M[A] be the matroid represented by AA. In the case that q=2, Cooper, Frieze and Pegden (RS\&A 2019) proved that given a fixed binary matroid NN, if kkNk\ge k_N and m/ndNm/n\ge d_N where kNk_N and dNd_N are sufficiently large constants depending on N, then a.a.s. M[A]M[A] contains NN as a minor. We improve their result by determining the sharp threshold (of m/nm/n) for the appearance of a fixed matroid NN as a minor of M[A]M[A], for every k3k\ge 3, and every finite field.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2307.15685,
  title  = {Minors of matroids represented by sparse random matrices over finite fields},
  author = {Pu Gao and Peter Nelson},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2307.15685},
  year   = {2024}
}