English

The tropical Poincar\'e-Hopf theorem

Algebraic Geometry 2023-02-22 v2 Combinatorics

Abstract

We express the beta invariant of a loopless matroid as tropical self-intersection number of the diagonal of its matroid fan (a "local" Poincar\'e-Hopf theorem). This provides another example of uncovering the "geometry" of matroids by expressing their invariants in terms of tropicalised geometric constructions. We also prove a global Poincar\'e-Hopf theorem and initiate the study of a more general tropical Lefschetz-Hopf trace formula by proving the two special cases of tropical curves and tropical tori.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2007.11642,
  title  = {The tropical Poincar\'e-Hopf theorem},
  author = {Johannes Rau},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2007.11642},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

31 pages, 3 figures; several improvements and corrections in the new version

R2 v1 2026-06-23T17:19:40.041Z