Related papers: On Seymour's Decomposition Theorem

Seymour's famous decomposition theorem for regular matroids states that any totally unimodular (TU) matrix can be constructed through a series of composition operations called $k$-sums starting from network matrices and their transposes and…

Let $\tilde{K}_{3,n}$, $n\geq 3$, be the simple graph obtained from $K_{3,n}$ by adding three edges to a vertex part of size three. We prove that if $H$ is a hyperplane of a 3-connected matroid $M$ and $M \not\cong M^*(\tilde{K}_{3,n})$,…

In the matroid secretary problem we are given a stream of elements and asked to choose a set of elements that maximizes the total value of the set, subject to being an independent set of a matroid given in advance. The difficulty comes from…

We consider the rank reduction problem for matroids: Given a matroid M and an integer k, find a minimum size subset of elements of M whose removal reduces the rank of M by at least k. When M is a graphical matroid this problem is the…

It follows by Bixby's Lemma that if $e$ is an element of a $3$-connected matroid $M$, then either ${\rm co}(M\delete e)$, the cosimplification of $M\delete e$, or ${\rm si}(M/e)$, the simplification of $M/e$, is $3$-connected. A natural…

We study varieties associated to hypergraphs from the point of view of projective geometry and matroid theory. We describe their decompositions into matroid varieties, which may be reducible and can have arbitrary singularities by the…

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…

In graph theory, the Szemer\'edi regularity lemma gives a decomposition of the indicator function for any graph $G$ into a structured component, a uniform part, and a small error. This result, in conjunction with a counting lemma that…

Let $M$ be a matroid. We study the expansions of $M$ mainly to see how the combinatorial properties of $M$ and its expansions are related to each other. It is shown that $M$ is a graphic, binary or a transversal matroid if and only if an…

Solving (for tame matroids) a problem of Aigner-Horev, Diestel and Postle, we prove that every tame matroid M can be reconstructed from its canonical tree decomposition into 3-connected pieces, circuits and cocircuits together with…

Let $M$ be an arbitrary matroid with circuits $\mathcal{C}(M)$. We propose a definition of a derived matroid $\delta M$ that has as its ground set $\mathcal{C}(M)$. Unlike previous attempts of such a definition, our definition applies to…

Fix a matroid N. A matroid M is N-fragile if, for each element e of M, at least one of M\e and M/e has no N-minor. The Bounded Canopy Conjecture is that all GF(q)-representable matroids M that have an N-minor and are N-fragile have branch…

We prove (Theorem 2.4) that the symmetrized deleted join $SymmDelJoin(\mathcal{K})$ of a "balanced family" $\mathcal{K} = \langle K_i\rangle_{i=1}^r$ of collectively $r$-unavoidable subcomplexes of $2^{[m]}$ is $(m-r-1)$-connected. As a…

Kruskal's theorem states that a sum of product tensors constitutes a unique tensor rank decomposition if the so-called k-ranks of the product tensors are large. We prove a "splitting theorem" for sets of product tensors, in which the k-rank…

We study point-line configurations, their minimal matroids, and their associated circuit varieties. We present an algorithm for identifying the minimal matroids of these configurations with respect to dependency order, or equivalently, the…

An $m \times n$ matrix $\mathsf{A}$ with column supports $\{S_i\}$ is $k$-separable if the disjunctions $\bigcup_{i \in \mathcal{K}} S_i$ are all distinct over all sets $\mathcal{K}$ of cardinality $k$. While a simple counting bound shows…

Let $A\subset B$ be an extension of commutative reduced rings and $M\subset N$ an extension of positive commutative cancellative torsion-free monoids. We prove that $A$ is subintegrally closed in $B$ and $M$ is subintegrally closed in $N$…

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 $r$.…

Given an $n$-connected binary matroid, we obtain a necessary and sufficient condition for its single-element coextensions to be $n$-connected.

As an extension of a classical tree-partition problem, we consider decompositions of graphs into edge-disjoint (rooted-)trees with an additional matroid constraint. Specifically, suppose we are given a graph $G=(V,E)$, a multiset…