The Bergman complex of a matroid and phylogenetic trees (Q2581498)

The Bergman complex \({\mathcal B}(M)\) of a matroid \(M\) is a polyhedral complex which arises in algebraic geometry, but which the authors describe purely combinatorially. The main result of this paper is that, appropriately subdivided, the Bergman complex of a matroid \(M\) is the order complex of the proper part of the lattice of flats \(L_M\) of the matroid. As a corollary, the authors have the Bergman complex \({\mathcal B}(M)\) is homotopy equivalent to a wedge of \((r-2)\)-dimensional spheres, where \(r\) is the rank of \(M\). The authors show the Bergman fan \(\widetilde {\mathcal B}(K_n)\) of the graphical matroid of the complete graph \(K_n\) is homeomorphic to the space of phylogenetic trees \({\mathcal T}_n \times R\). As a corollary, the authors have that the order complex of the proper part of the partition lattice \(\Pi_n\) is a subdivision of the link of the origin in the coarse subdivision of \({\mathcal T}_n\).