New examples of oriented matroids with disconnected realization spaces (Q1943663)

For positive integers \(r\leq n\), a realizable oriented matroid \(\mathcal{M}\) of rank \(r\) on \(n\) elements can be encoded by a real-valued \(r\times n\) matrix \(M\) via taking the signs of the determinants all \(r\times r\) submatrices and associating them to the set of \(r\) columns corresponding to the submatrix. Two matrices are equivalent if one is a linear transformation of the other. The quotient of the set of all real-valued \(r\times n\) matrices encoding \(\mathcal{M}\) is called its realization space. It is equipped with the quotient topology inherited from \(\mathbb{R}^{rn}\). It is known, that if \(n\leq 9\) then the realization space of \(\mathcal{M}\) is connected and that there are rank \(3\) uniform oriented matroids on \(n=14\) elements with disconnected realization space. The largest \(n\) such that all (general, rank \(3\), or uniform) oriented matroids on \(n\) elements have a connected realization space is unknown. In this paper a non-uniform rank \(3\) oriented matroid on \(n=13\) elements with disconnected realization space is constructed. Moreover, a \(13\) element rank \(3\) oriented matroid is constructed whose realization space is connected and forms a non-irreducible semi-algebraic variety.