Related papers: White's conjecture for matroids and inner projecti…
Hilbert polynomials have positivity properties under favorable conditions. We establish a similar "K-theoretic positivity" for matroids. As an application, for a multiplicity-free subvariety of a product of projective spaces such that the…
The matroidal version of the Merino--Welsh conjecture states that the Tutte polynomial $T_M(x,y)$ of any matroid $M$ without loops and coloops satisfies that $$\max(T_M(2,0),T_M(0,2))\geq T_M(1,1).$$ Equivalently, if the Merino--Welsh…
This dissertation presents new results on three different themes all related to matroid polytopes. First we investigate properties of Ehrhart polynomials of matroid polytopes, independence matroid polytopes, and polymatroids. We prove that…
We generalize the 1/3-2/3 conjecture from partially ordered sets to antimatroids: we conjecture that any antimatroid has a pair of elements x,y such that x has probability between 1/3 and 2/3 of appearing earlier than y in a uniformly…
A matroid is a machine capturing linearity of mathematical objects and producing combinatorial structures. Matroid structure arises everywhere since linearity is a ubiquitous concept. One natural way to obtain matroids is by considering…
This paper studies the properties of two kinds of matroids: (a) algebraic matroids and (b) finite and infinite matroids whose ground set have some canonical symmetry, for example row and column symmetry and transposition symmetry. For (a)…
Let $M$ be a matroid without loops or coloops and let $T(M;x,y)$ be its Tutte polynomial. In 1999 Merino and Welsh conjectured that $$\max(T(M;2,0), T(M;0,2))\geq T(M;1,1)$$ holds for graphic matroids. Ten years later, Conde and Merino…
Based on the structure theory of pairs of skew-symmetric matrices, we give a conjecture for the Hilbert series of the exterior algebra modulo the ideal generated by two generic quadratic forms. We show that the conjectured series is an…
Let $X=(x_{ij})$ and $Y=(y_{ij})$ be generic $n$ by $n$ matrices and $Z=XY-YX$. Let $S=k[x_{11},...,x_{nn},y_{11},...,y_{nn}]$, where $k$ is a field, let $I$ be the ideal generated by the entries of $Z$ and let $R=S/I$. We give a conjecture…
Rota's basis conjecture (RBC) states that given a collection B of n bases in a matroid M of rank n, one can always find n disjoint rainbow bases with respect to B. We show that if M is a matroid having n + k elements, then one can construct…
We prove that if $ M $ and $ N $ are finitary matroids on a common countable edge set $ E $ then they admit a common independent set $I $ such that there is a bipartition $ E=E_{M}\cup E_{N} $ for which $ I\cap E_M $ spans $ E_M $ in $ M $…
We show how the Tutte polynomial of a matroid $M$ can be computed from its condensed configuration, which is a statistic of its lattice of cyclic flats. The results imply that the Tutte polynomial of $M$ is already determined by the…
The natural matroid of an integer polymatroid was introduced to show that a simple construction of integer polymatroids from matroids yields all integer polymatroids. As we illustrate, the natural matroid can shed much more light on integer…
As part of the recent developments in infinite matroid theory, there have been a number of conjectures about how standard theorems of finite matroid theory might extend to the infinite setting. These include base packing, base covering, and…
Given two finite matroids on the same ground set, a celebrated result of Edmonds says that the ground set can be partitioned into two disjoint subsets in a manner that there is a common independent set in both matroids whose intersection…
We relate two conjectures that play a central role in the reported proof of Rota's Conjecture. Let $\mathbb F$ be a finite field. The first conjecture states that: the branch-width of any $\mathbb F$-representable $N$-fragile matroid is…
In this sequel to "Foundations of matroids - Part 1", we establish several presentations of the foundation of a matroid in terms of small building blocks. For example, we show that the foundation of a matroid M is the colimit of the…
The Tutte polynomial for matroids is not directly applicable to polymatroids. For instance, deletion-contraction properties do not hold. We construct a polynomial for polymatroids which behaves similarly to the Tutte polynomial of a…
A well-known conjecture states that the Whitney numbers of the second kind of a geometric lattice (simple matroid) are logarithmically concave. We show this conjecture to be equivalent to proving an upper bound on the number of new copoints…
Let ${\mathcal{M} = (M_i \colon i\in K)}$ be a finite or infinite family consisting of matroids on a common ground set $E$ each of which may be finitary or cofinitary. We prove the following Cantor-Bernstein-type result: If there is a…