Nonintersecting paths, Pfaffians, and \(\Delta\)-matroids (Q1384031)

\textit{J. R. Stembridge} [Adv. Math. 83, No. 1, 96-113 (1990; Zbl 0790.05007)] showed that one may use Pfaffians to enumerate configurations of non-empty paths in a directed graph. \textit{W. Wenzel} [Discrete Math. 115, No. 1-3, 253-266 (1993; Zbl 0796.05023)] describes the representability of \(\Delta\)-matroids by skew-symmetric matrices in terms of Pfaffians. After a review of the above and similar results from various sources, this paper shows that non-intersecting paths in certain acyclic directed graphs give rise to \(\Delta\)-matroids defined on the vertex set of the graph. Concerning valuations of these \(\Delta\)-matroids, it is remarked that in results of \textit{A. W. M. Dress} and \textit{W. Wenzel} [Appl. Math. Lett. 4, No. 6, 55-58 (1991; Zbl 0764.05018)] the reals may be replaced by any linearly ordered abelian group.