Related papers: On the relative importance of excluded minors

The class of 2-regular matroids is a natural generalisation of regular and near-regular matroids. We prove an excluded-minor characterisation for the class of 2-regular matroids. The class of 3-regular matroids coincides with the class of…

We investigate the set of excluded minors of connectivity 2 for the class of frame matroids. We exhibit a list $\mathcal{E}$ of 18 such matroids, and show that if $N$ is such an excluded minor, then either $N \in \mathcal{E}$ or $N$ is a…

The classes of even-cycle matroids, even-cycle matroids with a blocking pair, and even-cut matroids each have hundreds of excluded minors. We show that the number of excluded minors for these classes can be drastically reduced if we…

Mayhew and Royle (2008) showed that there are 564 excluded minors for the class of GF(5)-representable matroids having at most 9 elements. We enumerate the excluded minors for GF(5)-representable matroids having 10 elements: there are…

Let $M$ be an excluded minor for the class of $\mathbb{P}$-representable matroids for some partial field $\mathbb{P}$, let $N$ be a $3$-connected strong $\mathbb{P}$-stabilizer that is non-binary, and suppose $M$ has a pair of elements…

If S is a set of matroids, then the matroid M is S-fragile if, for every element e in E(M), either M\e or M/e has no minor isomorphic to a member of S. Excluded-minor characterizations often depend, implicitly or explicitly, on…

We show that the class of bicircular matroids has only a finite number of excluded minors. Key tools used in our proof include representations of matroids by biased graphs and the recently introduced class of quasi-graphic matroids. We show…

We give an excluded-minor characterization for the class of matroids M in which M\e or M/e is binary for all e in E(M). This class is closely related to the class of matroids in which every member is binary or can be obtained from a binary…

We describe an implementation of a computer search for the "small" excluded minors for a class of matroids representable over a partial field. Using these techniques, we enumerate the excluded minors on at most 15 elements for both the…

Let $\cX$ be a family of subsets of a finite set $E$. A matroid on $E$ is called an $\cX$-matroid if each set in $\cX$ is a circuit. We consider the problem of determining when there exists a unique maximal $\cX$-matroid in the weak order…

If $\mathcal{C}$ is a minor-closed class of matroids, the class $\mathcal{C}'$ of integer polymatroids whose natural matroids are in $\mathcal{C}$ is also minor closed, as is the class $\mathcal{C}'_k$ of $k$-polymatroids in $\mathcal{C}'$.…

A matroid of rank $r$ on $n$ elements is a positroid if it has a representation by an $r$ by $n$ matrix over $\mathbb{R}$, each $r$ by $r$ submatrix of which has nonnegative determinant. Earlier characterizations of connected positroids and…

Brylawski and Seymour independently proved that if $M$ is a connected matroid with a connected minor $N$, and $e \in E(M) - E(N)$, then $M \backslash e$ or $M / e$ is connected having $N$ as a minor. This paper proves an analogous but…

Split matroids form a minor-closed class of matroids, and are defined by placing conditions on the system of split hyperplanes in the matroid base polytope. They can equivalently be defined in terms of structural properties involving cyclic…

For all positive integers $\ell$ and $r$, we determine the maximum number of elements of a simple rank-$r$ positroid without the rank-$2$ uniform matroid $U_{2,\ell+2}$ as a minor, and characterize the matroids with the maximum number of…

We discuss a conjecture of Ingleton on excluded minors for base-orderability, and, extending a result he stated, we prove that infinitely many of the matroids that he identified are excluded minors for base-orderability, as well as for the…

We prove that every paving matroid that is an excluded minor of interval positroids can be reduced to one of three fundamental families of excluded minors of interval positroids by relaxing dependent hyperplanes. Using this result, we…

A flat cover is a collection of flats identifying the non-bases of a matroid. We introduce the notion of cover complexity, the minimal size of such a flat cover, as a measure for the complexity of a matroid, and present bounds on the number…

Let $M$ be a 3-connected matroid, and let $N$ be a 3-connected minor of $M$. We say that a pair $\{x_1,x_2\} \subseteq E(M)$ is $N$-detachable if one of the matroids $M/x_1/x_2$ or $M \backslash x_1 \backslash x_2$ is both 3-connected and…

For a matroid $M$ having $m$ rank-one flats, the density $d(M)$ is $\tfrac{m}{r(M)}$ unless $m = 0$, in which case $d(M)= 0$. A matroid is density-critical if all of its proper minors of non-zero rank have lower density. By a 1965 theorem…