Dependencies among dependencies in matroids (Q2325746)

Summary: In 1971, G.-C. Rota introduced the concept of derived matroids to investigate ``dependencies among dependencies'' in matroids. In this paper, we study the derived matroid \(\delta M\) of an \({\mathbb F}\)-representation of a matroid \(M\). The matroid \(\delta M\) has a naturally associated \({\mathbb F}\)-representation, so we can define a sequence \(\delta M, \delta^2 M, \ldots\). The main result classifies such derived sequences of matroids into three types: finite, cyclic, and divergent. For the first two types, we obtain complete characterizations and thereby resolve some of the questions that J. \textit{J. Q. Longyear} posed for binary matroids [J. Number Theory 12, 71--76 (1980; Zbl 0432.05018)]. For the last type, the divergence is estimated by the coranks of the matroids in the derived sequence.