Correlation bounds for fields and matroids (Q2119388)

Summary: Let \(G\) be a finite connected graph, and let \(T\) be a spanning tree of \(G\) chosen uniformly at random. The work of Kirchhoff on electrical networks can be used to show that the events \(e_1\in T\) and \(e_2\in T\) are negatively correlated for any distinct edges \(e_1\) and \(e_2\). What can be said for such events when the underlying matroid is not necessarily graphic? We use Hodge theory for matroids to bound the correlation between the events \(e\in\mathrm{B}\), where \(\mathrm{B}\) is a randomly chosen basis of a matroid. As an application, we prove Mason's conjecture that the number of \(k\)-element independent sets of a matroid forms an ultra-log-concave sequence in \(k\).