An intersection theorem for supermatroids (Q803140)

The author generalizes the matroid intersection theorem to distributive supermatroids, a structure that extends the matroid to the partially ordered ground set. Distributive supermatroids are special cases of both supermatroids and greedoids, and they generalize polymatroids. This is the first good characterization proved for the intersection problem of an independence system where the ground set is partially ordered. The two partially ordered distributive supermatroids are defined on the same partially ordered set. The author also shows that the problem of finding the maximum common independent set of two supermatroids defined of different partially ordered sets contains the matroid matching problem as a special case.