Homotopy Sphere Representations for Matroids

For any rank r oriented matroid M, a construction is given of a ??topological representation?? of M by an arrangement of homotopy spheres in a simplicial complex which is homotopy equivalent to S ^r?C1 . The construction is completely explicit and depends only on a choice of maximal flag in M. If M is orientable, then all Folkman-Lawrence representations of all orientations of M embed in this representation in a homotopically nice way.     

Matroids and a forest cover problem

A forest cover of a graph is a spanning forest for which each component has at least two nodes. IfK is a subset of nodes, aK-forest cover is a forest cover including exactly one node fromK in each component. We show that the weighted two matroid intersection algorithm determines the maximum costK-forest cover.Centro de Matemática e Aplicações Fundamentais (Projecto 6F91).     

An Adjacency Criterion for Coxeter Matroids

A Coxeter matroid is a generalization of matroid, ordinary matroid being the case corresponding to the family of Coxeter groups A _n , which are isomorphic to the symmetric groups. A basic result in the subject is a geometric characterization of Coxeter matroid in terms of the matroid polytope, a result first stated by Gelfand and Serganova. This paper concerns properties of the matroid polytope. In particular, a criterion is given for adjacency of vertices in the matroid polytope.     

Global Rank Axioms for Poset Matroids

An excellent introduction to the topic of poset matroids is due to Barnabei, Nicoletti and Pezzoli. In this paper, we investigate the rank axioms for poset matroids; thereby we can characterize poset matroids in a “global” version and a “pseudo-global” version. Some corresponding properties of combinatorial schemes are also obtained.     

A Commutative Algebra for Oriented Matroids

Let V be a vector space of dimension d over a field K and let A be a central arrangement of hyperplanes in V. To answer a question posed by K. Aomoto, P. Orlik and H. Terao construct a commutative K -algebra U(A) in terms of the equations for the hyperplanes of A. In the course of their work the following question naturally occurred: \circ Is U(A) determined by the intersection lattice L(A) of the hyperplanes of A? We give a negative answer to this question. The theory of oriented matroids gives rise to a combinatorial analogue of the algebra of Orlik—Terao, which is the main tool of our proofs. Received November 7, 2000, and in revised form May 18, 2001. Online publication November 2, 2001.     

On Crapo's Beta Invariant for Matroids

In this paper we characterize the matroids for which Crapo's beta invariant does not exceed 4. In addition, we relate the beta invariant of a matroid to its chromatic number and to its connectivity.     

Systems of Polynomials for Detecting Orientable Matroids

We study systems of polynomial equations that correspond to a matroid M. Each of these systems has a zero solution if and only if M is orientable. Since determining if a matroid is orientable is NP-complete with respect to the size of the input data, determining if these systems have solutions is also NP-complete. However, we show that one of the associated polynomial systems corresponding to M is linear if M is a binary matroid and thus it may be determined if binary matroids are orientable in polynomial time given the circuits and cocircuits of said matroid as the input. In the case when M is not binary, we consider the associated system of non-linear polynomials. In this case Hilbertʼs Nullstellensatz gives us that M is non-orientable if and only if a certain certificate to the given polynomials system exists. We wish to place bounds on the degree of these certificates in future research.     

Boundaries of Coxeter Matroids

The purpose of this paper is to introduce, for a finite Coxeter groupW, the mod 2 boundary operator on the space of all Coxeter matroids (also known asWP-matroids) forWandP, wherePvaries through all the proper standard parabolic subgroups ofW(Theorem 3 of the paper). A remarkably simple interpretation of Coxeter matroids as certain sets of faces of the generalized permutahedron associated with the Coxeter groupW(Theorem 1) yields a natural definition of the boundary of a Coxeter matroid. The latter happens to be a union of Coxeter matroids for maximal standard parabolic subgroupsQ_iofP(Theorem 2). These results have very natural interpretations in the case of ordinary matroids and flag-matroids (Section 3).     

Foundations of the Theory of Dual Lie Algebras

In this paper we introduce and study dual Lie algebras, i.e., Lie algebras over the algebra of dual numbers. We establish some fundamental properties of such Lie algebras and compare them with the corresponding properties of real and complex Lie algebras. We discuss the question of classification of dual Lie algebras of small dimension and consider the connection of dual Lie algebras with approximate Lie algebras.     

Titchmarsh-Sims-Weyl Theory for Complex Hamiltonian Systems

The paper extends to complex Hamiltonian systems previous workof the authors on the Sims extension of the Titchmarsh–Weyltheory for Sturm–Liouville equations with complex potentials,and analyses the spectral properties of associated non-self-adjointoperators. 2000 Mathematics Subject Classification 34B20, 34Lxx.     

A Representation of a Family of Secret Sharing Matroids

Deciding whether a matroid is secret sharing or not is a well-known open problem. In Ng and Walker [6] it was shown that a matroid decomposes into uniform matroids under strong connectivity. The question then becomes as follows: when is a matroid m with N uniform components secret sharing? When N = 1, m corresponds to a uniform matroid and hence is secret sharing. In this paper we show, by constructing a representation using projective geometry, that all connected matroids with two uniform components are secret sharing