Eulerian and bipartite binary delta-matroids (Q2087657)

In a manner similar to generalizing graphs to matroids, the authors endeavor to generalize topological graph theory to delta-matroids by studying a correspondence between bipartite (Eulerian) embedded graphs and delta-matroids. A delta-matroid is a generalization of a matroid as seen from its definition: A set system is a pair \(D=(E, F)\), where \(E\) is a finite set (the ground set), and \(F\) is a collection of subsets of \(E\) (feasible sets). A delta-matroid is a proper set system that satisfies: For all \((X, Y, u)\) with \((X, Y) \in F\) and \(u \in (X\cup Y) -(X\cap Y)\), there is an element \(v \in (X\cup Y) -(X\cap Y)\) such that \((X\cup \{u, v\}) -(X \cap \{u, v\}) \in F\). Let \((E,D)\) be a delta-matroid and let \(F_{\min}\) be the set of feasible sets of minimum cardinality. A delta-matroid \((E,F)\) is bipartite (Eulerian), if \(D_{\min}\) is bipartite (Eulerian), where \(D_{\min}\) is the matroid given by \( (E, F_{\min})\). If the sizes of the feasible sets of a delta-matroid are all the same parity, the delta-matroid is even. The main result from the paper under review is given by Theorem 3.6: Let \(D=(E, F)\) be a binary even delta-matroid. Then \(D\) is bipartite if and only if \(D+E\) is an even delta-matroid. Several related results are also obtained.