Remarks on external elements in independence spaces (Q2431860)

Given a matroid \(M\) on the linearly ordered ground set \(S\) and a basis \(B\) of \(M\), an element \(e \in S \setminus B\) is externally active if \(e\) is the smallest element of its fundamental circuit with respect to \(B\) in the given ordering. This notion is extended to independence spaces as defined by \textit{J. Oxley} [Infinite matroids. Matroid applications, Encycl. Math. Appl. 40, 73--90 (1992; Zbl 0766.05016)]. It is shown that if \(M(S)\) is an independence space on a set \(S\) and \(X\subseteq S\setminus B\), \(X \not = \emptyset\), then there exists a well-ordering of \(S\) such that \(X\) is the set of all externally \(B\)-active elements if and only if there exists a cyclic flat \(F\) of \(M(S)\) such that \(B\cap F\) is a basis for \(M(F)\).