Elastic elements in 3-connected matroids (Q2034063)

Summary: It follows by Bixby's Lemma that if \(e\) is an element of a \(3\)-connected matroid \(M\), then either \(\text{co}(M\backslash e)\), the cosimplification of \(M\backslash e\), or \(\text{si}(M/e)\), the simplification of \(M/e\), is 3 -connected. A natural question to ask is whether \(M\) has an element \(e\) such that both \(\text{co}(M\backslash e)\) and \(\text{si}(M/e)\) are \(3\)-connected. Calling such an element ``elastic'', in this paper we show that if \(|E(M)|\geqslant 4\), then \(M\) has at least four elastic elements provided \(M\) has no 4-element fans.