Strongly inequivalent representations and Tutte polynomials of matroids (Q2496149)

The concept of a Tutte polynomial \(t(M;x,y)\) of a matroid \(M\) is introduced. The author developes constructive techniques to prove that non-isomorphic 3-connected matroids that are representable over a fixed finite field and that have the same Tutte polynomial abound. In particular, for most prime powers \(q\) are constructed infinite families of sets of 3-connected matroids for which the matroid s in a given set are non-isomorphic, are representable over \(GF(q)\), and have the same Tutte polynomial.