Related papers: $k$-loose elements and $k$-paving matroids
We call a matroid element "loose" if it is contained in no circuits of size less than the rank of the matroid. A matroid in which all elements are loose is a paving matroid. Acketa determined all binary paving matroids, while Oxley…
Every minor-closed class of matroids of bounded branch-width can be characterized by a list of excluded minors, but unlike graphs, this list may need to be infinite in general. However, for each fixed finite field $\mathbb F$, the list…
A matroid is uniform if and only if it has no minor isomorphic to $U_{1,1}\oplus U_{0,1}$ and is paving if and only if it has no minor isomorphic to $U_{2,2}\oplus U_{0,1}$. This paper considers, more generally, when a matroid $M$ has no…
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…
We show that, for any prime $p$ and integer $k \geq 2$, a simple GF($p$)-representable matroid with sufficiently high rank has a rank-$k$ flat which is either independent in $M$, or is a projective or affine geometry. As a corollary we…
In this paper we highlight some enumerative results concerning matroids of low rank and prove the tail-ends of various sequences involving the number of matroids on a finite set to be log-convex. We give a recursion for a new, slightly…
We investigate the problem of constructing fault-tolerant bases in matroids. Given a matroid M and a redundancy parameter k, a k-fault-tolerant basis is a minimum-size set of elements such that, even after the removal of any k elements, the…
Given a matroid together with a coloring of its ground set, a subset of its elements is called rainbow colored if no two of its elements have the same color. We show that if a binary matroid of rank $r$ is colored with exactly $r$ colors,…
We show that, if $k$ and $\ell$ are positive integers and $r$ is sufficiently large, then the number of rank-$k$ flats in a rank-$r$ matroid $M$ with no $U_{2,\ell+2}$-minor is less than or equal to number of rank-$k$ flats in a rank-$r$…
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 $r$.…
A framework consists of an undirected graph $G$ and a matroid $M$ whose elements correspond to the vertices of $G$. Recently, Fomin et al. [SODA 2023] and Eiben et al. [ArXiV 2023] developed parameterized algorithms for computing paths of…
We discuss a conjecture of Ingleton on excluded minors for base-orderability, and, extending a result he stated, we prove that infinitely many of the matroids that he identified are excluded minors for base-orderability, as well as for the…
Consider a random $n\times m$ matrix $A$ over the finite field of order $q$ where every column has precisely $k$ nonzero elements, and let $M[A]$ be the matroid represented by $A$. In the case that q=2, Cooper, Frieze and Pegden (RS\&A…
A matrix is said to have factor width at most $k$ if it can be written as a sum of positive semidefinite matrices that are non-zero only in a single $k \times k$ principal submatrix. We explore the ``factor-width-$k$ rank'' of a matrix,…
For each proper minor-closed subclass $\cM$ of the $\GF(q^2)$-representable matroids containing all simple $\GF(q)$-representable matroids, we give, for all large $r$, a tight upper bound on the number of points in a rank-$r$ matroid in…
Geelen, Gerards, and Whittle [3] announced the following result: let $q = p^k$ be a prime power, and let $\mathcal{M}$ be a proper minor-closed class of $\mathrm{GF}(q)$-representable matroids, which does not contain $\mathrm{PG}(r-1,p)$…
For each odd integer $k\ge 5$, we prove that, if $M$ is a simple rank-$r$ binary matroid with no odd circuit of length less than $k$ and with $|M| > k 2^{r-k+1}$, then $M$ is isomorphic to a restriction of the rank-$r$ binary affine…
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…
Frick and Grohe [J. ACM 48 (2006), 1184-1206] introduced a notion of graph classes with locally bounded tree-width and established that every first order logic property can be decided in almost linear time in such a graph class. Here, we…