Related papers: Matroids representable over fields with a common s…
We show for each positive integer $a$ that, if $\cM$ is a minor-closed class of matroids not containing all rank-$(a+1)$ uniform matroids, then there exists an integer $n$ such that either every rank-$r$ matroid in $\cM$ can be covered by…
Let $M$ be a representable matroid on $n$ elements. We give bounds, in terms of $n$, on the least positive characteristic and smallest field over which $M$ is representable.
A frame matroid M is graphic if there is a graph G with cycle matroid isomorphic to M. In general, if there is one such graph, there will be many. Zaslavsky has shown that frame matroids are precisely those having a representation as a…
The property of balance (in the sense of Feder and Mihail) is investigated in the context of paving matroids. The following examples are exhibited: (a) a class of ``sparse'' paving matroids that are balanced, but at the same time rich…
The growth-rate function for a minor-closed class $\mathcal{M}$ of matroids is the function $h$ where, for each non-negative integer $r$, $h(r)$ is the maximum number of elements of a simple matroid in $\mathcal{M}$ with rank at most $r$.…
The correspondence between linear codes and representable matroids is well known. But a similar correspondence between quantum codes and matroids is not known. We show that representable symplectic matroids over a finite field…
Consider a finite field $\mathbb F_q$, $q=p^d$, where $p$ is an odd number. Let $M=(E,r)$ be a regular matroid; denote by ${\mathcal B}$ the family of its bases, $\bar s(M;\alpha)=\sum_{B\in {\mathcal B}}\prod_{e\not\in B} \alpha_e$, where…
This paper compares skew-linear and multilinear matroid representations. These are matroids that are representable over division rings and (roughly speaking) invertible matrices, respectively. The main tool is the von Staudt construction,…
Given a group $G$ of automorphisms of a matroid $M$, we describe the representations of $G$ on the homology of the independence complex of the dual matroid $M^*$. These representations are related with the homology of the lattice of flats…
We prove that for every proper minor-closed class $M$ of matroids representable over a prime field, there exists a constant-competitive matroid secretary algorithm for the matroids in $M$. This result relies on the extremely powerful…
We associate to every matroid M a polynomial with integer coefficients, which we call the Kazhdan-Lusztig polynomial of M, in analogy with Kazhdan-Lusztig polynomials in representation theory. We conjecture that the coefficients are always…
We show that a random subset of the rank-$n$ projective geometry $\text{PG}(n-1,q)$ is, with high probability, not $(b,c)$-decomposable: if $k$ is its colouring number, it does not admit a partition of its ground set into classes of size at…
We show that if the ground set of a matroid can be partitioned into $k\ge 2$ bases, then for any given subset $S$ of the ground set, there is a partition into $k$ bases such that the sizes of the intersections of the bases with $S$ may…
In this paper, we prove that a binary definite quadratic form over F_q[t], where q is odd, is completely determined up to equivalence by the polynomials it represents up to degree 3m-2, where m is the degree of its discriminant. We also…
A (positive definite and non-classic integral) quadratic form is called strongly $s$-regular if it satisfies a strong regularity property on the number of representations of squares of integers. In this article, we prove that for any…
A matroid M is unbreakable if it is connected and M/F is connected for every flat F of M . Oxley and Pfeil characterized the unbreakable graphic matroids, and Fife, Mayhew, Oxley, and Semple characterized the graphs underlying 3-connected…
We consider the vector linear solvability of networks over a field $\mathbb{F}_q.$ It is well known that a scalar linear solution over $\mathbb{F}_q$ exists for a network if and only if the network is \textit{matroidal} with respect to a…
It is well known that linear rank-metric codes give rise to q-polymatroids. Analogously to matroid theory one may ask whether a given q-polymatroid is representable by a rank-metric code. We provide an answer by presenting an example of a…
We formulate and prove matroid analogues of results concerning matchings in groups. A matching in an abelian group $(G,+)$ is a bijection $f:A\to B$ between two finite subsets $A,B$ of $G$ satisfying $a+f(a)\notin A$ for all $a\in A$. A…
We give a correspondence between simple matroids and a reconstruction of Alfred North Whitehead's theory of dimension, as developed in "On Mathematical Concepts of the Material World" (1906). In brief, if a geometrical system in the…