Splicing matroids

DOI10.1016/J.EJC.2011.01.018zbMATH Open1229.05061arXiv0902.0034OpenAlexW2912798824MaRDI QIDQ2275463FDOQ2275463

Authors: William R. Schmitt, Joseph E. Bonin

Publication date: 9 August 2011

Published in: European Journal of Combinatorics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: We introduce and study a natural variant of matroid amalgams. For matroids M(A) and N(B) such that M/(A-B)=N(B-A), we define a splice of M and N to be a matroid L on the union of A and B with L(B-A)=M and L/(A-B)=N. We show that splices exist for each such pair of matroids M and N; furthermore, there is a freest splice of M and N, which we call the free splice. We characterize when a matroid L(E) is the free splice of LU and L/V for subsets U and V of E. We study minors of free splices and the interaction between free splice and several other matroid operations. Although free splice is not an associative operation, we prove a weakened counterpart of associativity that holds in general and we characterize the triples for which associativity holds. We also study free splice as it relates to various classes of matroids.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/0902.0034

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zbMATH Keywords

matroid amalgams

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Combinatorial aspects of matroids and geometric lattices (05B35)

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