Ore-type and Dirac-type theorems for matroids

Let M be a connected binary matroid having no -minor. Let be a collection of cocircuits of M. We prove there is a circuit intersecting all cocircuits of if either one of two things hold:

(i) For any two disjoint cocircuits and in it holds that .

(ii) For any two disjoint cocircuits and in it holds that .

Part (ii) implies Ore's Theorem, a well-known theorem giving sufficient conditions for the existence of a hamilton cycle in a graph. As an application of part (i), it is shown that if M is a k-connected regular matroid and has cocircumference c^*2k, then there is a circuit which intersects each cocircuit of size c^*−k+2 or greater.We also extend a theorem of Dirac for graphs by showing that for any k-connected binary matroid M having no -minor, it holds that for any k cocircuits of M there is a circuit which intersects them.