Related papers: Fan-extensions in fragile matroids
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…
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…
If $M$ is a matroid, then a simple matroid $M'$ with the same rank as $M$ is an adjoint of $M$ if there is an inclusion-reversing embedding $\phi$ of the lattice of flats of $M$ into the lattice of flats of $M'$ such that $\phi$ maps the…
We discuss several extension properties of matroids and polymatroids and their application as necessary conditions for the existence of different matroid representations, namely linear, folded linear, algebraic, and entropic…
We show that, if $M$ is a simple rank-$n$ matroid with no $\ell$-point line minor and no minor isomorphic to the cycle matroid of a $t$-vertex complete graph, then the ratio $|M| / n$ is bounded above by a singly exponential function of…
For a set of matroids $\mathcal{M}$, let $ex_\mathcal{M}(n)$ be the maximum size of a simple rank-$n$ matroid in $\mathcal{M}$. We prove that, for any finite field $\mathbb{F}$, if $\mathcal{M}$ is a minor-closed class of…
The notion of thin sums matroids was invented to extend the notion of representability to non-finitary matroids. A matroid is tame if every circuit-cocircuit intersection is finite. We prove that a tame matroid is a thin sums matroid over a…
Let ${\bf A}={\bf A}_{n,m,k}$ be a random $n\times m$ matrix over $\mathbf{GF}_2$ wher each column consists of $k$ randomly chosen ones. Let $M$ be an arbirary fixed binary matroid. We show that if $m/n$ and $k$ are sufficiently large then…
Our splitter theorem for internally 4-connected binary matroids studies pairs of the form (M,N), where N and M are internally 4-connected binary matroids, M has a proper N-minor, and if M' is an internally 4-connected matroid such that M…
Let $M$ be a 3-connected matroid, and let $N$ be a 3-connected minor of $M$. 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 has an…
For a matroid $M$, an element $e$ such that both $M\backslash e$ and $M/e$ are regular is called a regular element of $M$. We determine completely the structure of non-regular matroids with at least two regular elements. Besides four small…
The {\em breadth} of a tangle $\mathcal{T}$ in a matroid is the size of the largest spanning uniform submatroid of the tangle matroid of $\mathcal{T}$. A matroid $M$ is {\em weakly $4$-connected} if it is 3-connected and whenever $(X,Y)$ is…
Let M and N be internally 4-connected binary matroids such that M has a proper N-minor, and |E(N)| is at least seven. As part of our project to develop a splitter theorem for internally 4-connected binary matroids, we prove the following…
A frame template over a field $\mathbb F$ describes the precise way in which a given $\mathbb F$-representable matroid is close to being a frame matroid. Our main result determines the maximum-rank projective or affine geometry that is…
Thin sums matroids were introduced to extend the notion of representability to non-finitary matroids. We give a new criterion for testing when the thin sums construction gives a matroid. We show that thin sums matroids over thin families…
We consider some applications of our characterisation of the internally 4-connected binary matroids with no M(K3,3)-minor. We characterise the internally 4-connected binary matroids with no minor in some subset of…
Let $M$ be a $3$-connected matroid. A pair $\{e,f\}$ in $M$ is detachable if $M \backslash e \backslash f$ or $M / e / f$ is $3$-connected. Williams (2015) proved that if $M$ has at least 13 elements, then at least one of the following…
In this sequel to "Foundations of matroids - Part 1", we establish several presentations of the foundation of a matroid in terms of small building blocks. For example, we show that the foundation of a matroid M is the colimit of the…
Bicircular lift matroids are a class of matroids defined on the edge set of a graph. For a given graph $G$, the circuits of its bicircular lift matroid $L(G)$ are the edge sets of those subgraphs of $G$ that contain at least two cycles, and…
Let $M$ be a $3$-connected binary matroid; $M$ is called internally $4$-connected if one side of every $3$-separation is a triangle or a triad, and $M$ is $(4,4,S)$-connected if one side of every $3$-separation is a triangle, a triad, or a…