Related papers: $k$-loose elements and $k$-paving matroids

It is well known that linear rank-metric codes give rise to q-polymatroids. Analogously to matroid theory one may ask whether a given q-polymatroid is representable by a rank-metric code. We provide an answer by presenting an example of a…

For all positive integers $\ell$ and $r$, we determine the maximum number of elements of a simple rank-$r$ positroid without the rank-$2$ uniform matroid $U_{2,\ell+2}$ as a minor, and characterize the matroids with the maximum number of…

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…

Let $\mathcal B=\mathcal B_{k,n,p}$ be a random collection of $k$-subsets of $[n]$ where each possible set is present independently with probability $p$. Let $\cal E_{\mathcal B}$ be the event that $\mathcal B$ defines the set of bases of a…

It has been conjectured that asymptotically almost all matroids are sparse paving, i.e. that $s(n) \sim m(n)$, where $m(n)$ denotes the number of matroids on a fixed groundset of size $n$, and $s(n)$ the number of sparse paving matroids. In…

We introduce various quantities that can be defined for an arbitrary matroid, and show that certain conditions on these quantities imply that a matroid is not representable over $\mathbb{F}_q$ where $q$ is a prime power. Mostly, for a…

We give two proofs that the $h$-vector of any paving matroid is a pure O-sequence, thus answering in the affirmative a conjecture made by R. Stanley, for this particular class of matroids. We also investigate the problem of obtaining good…

For any positive integer $l$ we prove that if $M$ is a simple matroid with no $(l+2)$-point line as a minor and with sufficiently large rank, then $|E(M)|\le \frac{q^{r(M)}-1}{q-1}$, where $q$ is the largest prime power less than or equal…

This paper studies systems of polynomial equations that provide information about orientability of matroids. First, we study systems of linear equations over GF(2), originally alluded to by Bland and Jensen in their seminal paper on weak…

We show for each positive integer $a$ that, if $\mathcal{M}$ is a minor-closed class of matroids not containing all rank-$(a+1)$ uniform matroids, then there exists an integer $c$ such that either every rank-$r$ matroid in $\mathcal{M}$ can…

We show that a simple rank-$r$ matroid with no $(t+1)$-element independent flat has at least as many elements as the matroid $M_{r,t}$ defined as the direct sum of $t$ binary projective geometries whose ranks pairwise differ by at most $1$.…

Let ${\bf A}={\bf A}_{n,m,k}$ be a random $n\times m$ matrix over $\mathbf{GF}_2$ wher each column consists of $k$ randomly chosen ones. Let $M$ be an arbirary fixed binary matroid. We show that if $m/n$ and $k$ are sufficiently large then…

The weak-map order on the matroid base polytopes is the partial order defined by inclusion. Lucas proved that the base polytope of no binary matroid includes the base polytope of a connected matroid. A matroid base polytope is said to be…

We construct, for every $r \ge 3$ and every prime power $q > 10$, a rank-$r$ matroid with no $U_{2,q+2}$-minor, having more hyperplanes than the rank-$r$ projective geometry over $\mathrm{GF}(q)$.

The singleton and doubleton minors of a polymatroid $\rho$ encode a surprising amount of information about the structural complexity of $\rho$. Given any polymatroid $\rho$, we can subtract from it a maximally-separated polymatroid,…

We prove that the maximum size of a simple binary matroid of rank $r \geq 5$ with no AG(3,2)-minor is $\binom{r+1}{2}$ and characterise those matroids achieving this bound. When $r \geq 6$, the graphic matroid $M(K_{r+1})$ is the unique…

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…

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 $r$.…

We introduce the parametric matroid one-interdiction problem. Given a matroid, each element of its ground set is associated with a weight that depends linearly on a real parameter from a given parameter interval. The goal is to find, for…

An 'induced restriction' of a simple binary matroid $M$ is a restriction $M|F$, where $F$ is a flat of $M$. We consider the class $\mathcal{M}$ of all simple binary matroids $M$ containing neither a free matroid on three elements (which we…