Related papers: Excluded minors are almost fragile II: essential e…

We use the Strong Splitter Theorem to decompose the excluded minor class of binary matroids with no $E_4$-minor. Using this theorem we can get the 3-decomposers and the extremal internally 4-connected matroids as well as any other important…

A minor-closed class of matroids is (strongly) fractal if the number of n-element matroids in the class is dominated by the number of n-element excluded minors. We conjecture that when K is an infinite field, the class of K-representable…

Let $M$ be a representable matroid, and $Q, R, S, T$ subsets of the ground set. We prove that, if $M$ is sufficiently large, then there is an element $e$ such that deleting or contracting $e$ preserves both the $Q$-$R$ and the $S$-$T$…

Let $M$ be a matroid and let $Q$, $R$, $S$ and $T$ be subsets of the ground set such that the smallest separation that separates $Q$ from $R$ has order $k$ and the smallest separation that separates $S$ from $T$ has order $l$. We prove that…

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…

Let $M$ be a $3$-connected binary matroid; $M$ is 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…

A matroid $N$ is said to be triangle-rounded in a class of matroids $\mathcal{M}$ if each $3$-connected matroid $M\in \mathcal{M}$ with a triangle $T$ and an $N$-minor has an $N$-minor with $T$ as triangle. Reid gave a result useful to…

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. 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 1963, Halin and Jung proved that every simple graph with minimum degree at least four has $K_5$ or $K_{2,2,2}$ as a minor. Mills and Turner proved an analog of this theorem by showing that every $3$-connected binary matroid in which…

Let $\mathcal M$ be a class of matroids closed under minors and isomorphism. Let $N$ be a matroid in $\mathcal M$ with an exact $k$-separation $(A, B)$. We say $N$ is a $k$-decomposer for $\mathcal M$ having $(A, B)$ as an inducer, if every…

An element $e$ of a $3$-connected matroid $M$ is elastic if ${\rm si}(M/e)$, the simplification of $M/e$, and ${\rm co}(M\backslash e)$, the cosimplification of $M\backslash e$, are both $3$-connected. It was recently shown that if…

We prove that, for each nonnegative integer k and each matroid N, if M is a 3-connected matroid containing N as a minor, and the the branch width of M is sufficiently large, then there is a k-element subset X of E(M) such that one of M\X…

In earlier work, we characterized the class of matroids with no $M(C_4)$ as an induced minor and the class of matroids with no member of $\{M(C_4),M(K_4)\}$ as an induced minor. In this paper, for every two matroids in…

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 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…

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…

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 $\mathcal{C}'$.…

In this paper, we give a complete characterization of binary matroids with no $P_9$-minor. A 3-connected binary matroid $M$ has no $P_9$-minor if and only if $M$ is one of the internally 4-connected non-regular minors of a special…

In this paper we establish a variation of the Splitter Theorem. Let $M$ and $N$ be simple 3-connected matroids. We say that $x\in E(M)$ is vertically $N$-contractible if $si(M/x)$ is a 3-connected matroid with an $N$-minor. Whittle (for…