Related papers: Circuit decompositions of binary matroids

The prism graph is the dual of the complete graph on five vertices with an edge deleted, $K_5\backslash e$. In this paper we determine the class of binary matroids with no prism minor. The motivation for this problem is the 1963 result by…

The classes of even-cycle matroids, even-cycle matroids with a blocking pair, and even-cut matroids each have hundreds of excluded minors. We show that the number of excluded minors for these classes can be drastically reduced if we…

For a matroid $N$, a matroid $M$ is $N$-connected if every two elements of $M$ are in an $N$-minor together. Thus a matroid is connected if and only if it is $U_{1,2}$-connected. This paper proves that $U_{1,2}$ is the only connected…

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…

In this note we investigate some matroid minor structure results. In particular, we present sufficient conditions, in terms of {\em triangles}, for a matroid to have either $U_{2,4}$ or $F_7$ or $M(K_5)$ as a minor.

Seymour's decomposition theorem for regular matroids is a fundamental result with a number of combinatorial and algorithmic applications. In this work we demonstrate how this theorem can be used in the design of parameterized algorithms on…

We provide a constructive characterisation of circuits in the simple (2,2)-sparsity matroid. A circuit is a simple graph G=(V,E) with |E|=2|V|-1 and the number of edges induced by any $X \subsetneq V$ is at most 2|X|-2. Insisting on…

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…

We prove that the number of single element extensions of $M(K_{n+1})$ is $2^{{n\choose n/2}(1+o(1))}$. This is done using a characterization of extensions as "linear subclasses".

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…

The problem of covering the ground set of two matroids by a minimum number of common independent sets is notoriously hard even in very restricted settings, i.e.\ when the goal is to decide if two common independent sets suffice or not.…

Let $M$ be a 3-connected binary matroid and let $Y(M)$ be the set of elements of $M$ avoiding at least $r(M)+1$ non-separating cocircuits of $M$. Lemos proved that $M$ is non-graphic if and only if $Y(M)\neq\emp$. We generalize this result…

Let $EX[M_1\dots, M_k]$ denote the class of binary matroids with no minors isomorphic to $M_1, \dots, M_k$. In this paper we give a decomposition theorem for $EX[S_{10}, S_{10}^*]$, where $S_{10}$ is a certain 10-element rank-4 matroid. As…

Let $M$ be a 3-connected matroid, and let $N$ be a 3-connected minor of $M$. We say that 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…

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…

Halin proved that every minimally $k$-connected graph has a vertex of degree $k$. More generally, does every minimally vertically $k$-connected matroid have a $k$-element cocircuit? Results of Murty and Wong give an affirmative answer when…

We prove that for each fixed $m \ge 2$, there are only finitely many disjoint covering systems with minimum modulus at least $3$ in which precisely one modulus is repeated, namely the largest modulus, and it occurs exactly $m$ times.

Let b(M) denote the maximal number of disjoint bases in a matroid M. It is shown that if M is a matroid of rank d+1, then for any continuous map f from the matroidal complex M into the d-dimensional Euclidean space there exist t \geq…

The cycles of a graph give a natural cyclic ordering to their edge-sets, and these orderings are consistent in that two edges are adjacent in one cycle if and only if they are adjacent in every cycle in which they appear together. An…

We show that the class of bicircular matroids has only a finite number of excluded minors. Key tools used in our proof include representations of matroids by biased graphs and the recently introduced class of quasi-graphic matroids. We show…