Chords and disjoint paths in matroids

A chord of a circuit \(C\) of a matroid \(M\) on \(E\) is an element \(e\in E\setminus C\) such that \(C\) spans \(e\). Menger's theorem implies that, if \(M\) is graphic and non-separable, then \(e\) is a chord of some circuit if and only if \(M\setminus e\) is non-separable. This paper extends this characterization to the class of all matroids not having one of five minors; in particular, it holds for the class \(\mathcal F\) of binary matroids having no dual Fano minor. This result is used to show that a member \(M\) of \(\mathcal F\) is irreducible with respect to Edmunds' sum operation if and only if \(M\) is non-separable and \(M\setminus e\) is non-separable for each element \(e\) of \(M\). The corresponding result for graphic matroids is due to \textit{L. Lovász} and \textit{A. Recski} [Acta Math. Acad. Sci. Hung. 24, 329--333 (1973; Zbl 0281.05014)]. (The author has extended this characterization to the class of binary matroids in a subsequent paper [``Binary matroid sums. Q. J. Math., Oxf. II. Ser. 30, 271--281 (1979; Zbl 0416.05026)].

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