Strong Tutte Functions of Matroids and Graphs (Q4032455)

The author defines a strong Tutte function to be a function \(F\) from the class of matroids into a field \(K\) such that \(F(M_ 1 \oplus M_ 2)=F(M_ 1)F(M_ 2)\) and, if \(e\) is neither a loop nor a coloop of \(M\), then \(F(M)=a_ eF(M \backslash e)+ b_ e F(M/e)\). If for such a function, \(F(N_ 1)=F(N_ 2)\) whenever \(N_ 1\cong N_ 2\), and \(a_ e =b_ e=1\) for all \(e\), than \(F\) is a Tutte-Grothendieck invariant. \textit{T. H. Brylawski} [Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 171, 235-282 (1972; Zbl 0224.05007)] proved that all such invariants are evaluations of a certain two-variable polynomial known as the Tutte polynomial. The purpose of this paper is to generalize this result to a classification of all strong Tutte functions of matroids. The main result is that, while there are seven kinds of such functions, only one of these is non-degenerate and exists for all choices of the parameters \(a_ e\) and \(b_ e\) in the field \(K\). This function is the two-variable polynomial \[ \sum_{S \subseteq(M)}u^{r(M)-r(S)}v^{| S |-r(S)}\prod_{e \in E(M)- S} a_ e \cdot \prod_{e \in S}b_ e. \] A similar result holds for strong Tutte functions of colored matroids where \(a_ e\) and \(b_ e\) depend only on the color of \(e\). The corresponding results for graphs and edge-colored graphs are also derived, and these are used to give new characterizations of Kauffman's bracket polynomial of link diagrams.