Related papers: A splitter theorem for 3-connected 2-polymatroids
If $C_1$ and $C_2$ are circuits in a matroid $M$ with $e_1$ in $C_1-C_2$ and $e$ in $C_1\cap C_2$, then $M$ has a circuit $C_3$ such that $e\in C_3\subseteq (C_1\cup C_2)-e$. This strong circuit elimination axiom is inherently asymmetric. A…
A well-known theorem of Whitney states that a 3-connected planar graph admits an essentially unique embedding into the 2-sphere. We prove a 3-dimensional analogue: a simply-connected $2$-complex every link graph of which is 3-connected…
We prove that every infinite sequence of skew-symmetric or symmetric matrices M_1, M_2, ... over a fixed finite field must have a pair M_i, M_j (i<j) such that M_i is isomorphic to a principal submatrix of the Schur complement of a…
A minimal separator of a graph $G$ is a set $S \subseteq V(G)$ such that there exist vertices $a,b \in V(G) \setminus S$ with the property that $S$ separates $a$ from $b$ in $G$, but no proper subset of $S$ does. For an integer $k\ge 0$, we…
Let $S$ be a semigroup (written multiplicatively). Endowed with the operation of setwise multiplication induced by $S$ on its parts, the non-empty subsets of $S$ form themselves a semigroup, denoted by $\mathcal P(S)$. Accordingly, we say…
For a symmetric 2t-cycle in the tope graph of a simple oriented matroid M on the ground set {1,...,t}, where t is even, we describe decompositions of topes and subtopes of M with respect to the subtopes corresponding to the edges of the…
In 1990, Alon, Seymour, and Thomas gave the first balanced separator of size $O(h^{3/2}\sqrt{n})$ for any $K_h$-minor-free graph, which has had numerous algorithmic applications. They conjectured that the size of the balanced separator can…
We prove a sharp upper bound on the number of distinct columns of a totally unimodular matrix with column sums $1$ improving upon Heller's classical bound. The proof uses Seymour's decomposition theorem. Such matrices are closely related to…
The paper is devoted to prove a version of Milnor-Moore Theorem for connected braided bialgebras that are infinitesimally cocommutative. Namely in characteristic different from 2, we prove that, for a given connected braided bialgebra $A$…
As part of the graph minor project, Robertson and Seymour showed in 1990 that the class of graphs that can be embedded in a given surface can be characterized by a finite set of minimal excluded minors. However, their proof, because…
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…
The h-vector of a matroid M is an important invariant related to the independence complex of M and can also be recovered from an evaluation of its Tutte polynomial. A well-known conjecture of Stanley posits that the h-vector of a matroid is…
The cogirth, $g^\ast(M)$, of a matroid $M$ is the size of a smallest cocircuit of $M$. Finding the cogirth of a graphic matroid can be done in polynomial time, but Vardy showed in 1997 that it is NP-hard to find the cogirth of a binary…
A simple binary matroid is called claw-free if none of its rank-3 flats are independent sets. These objects can be equivalently defined as the sets $E$ of points in $\mathrm{PG}(n-1,2)$ for which $|E \cap P|$ is not a basis of $P$ for any…
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 basis exchange axiom has been a driving force in the development of matroid theory. However, the axiom gives only a local characterization of the relation of bases, which is a major stumbling block to further progress, and providing a…
Nested matroids were introduced by Crapo in 1965 and have appeared frequently in the literature since then. A flat of a matroid $M$ is Hamiltonian if it has a spanning circuit. A matroid $M$ is nested if and only if its Hamiltonian flats…
Let $ E $ be a possibly infinite set and let $ M $ and $ N $ be matroids defined on $ E $. We say that the pair $ \{ M,N \} $ has the Intersection property if $ M $ and $ N $ share an independent set $ I $ admitting a bipartition $…
The Graph Minors Structure Theorem of Robertson and Seymour asserts that, for every graph $H,$ every $H$-minor-free graph can be obtained by clique-sums of ``almost embeddable'' graphs. Here a graph is ``almost embeddable'' if it can be…
A tensor network is a product of tensors associated with vertices of some graph $G$ such that every edge of $G$ represents a summation (contraction) over a matching pair of indexes. It was shown recently by Valiant, Cai, and Choudhary that…