Ear-decompositions and the complexity of the matching polytope

The complexity of the matching polytope of graphs may be measured with the maximum length $\beta$ of a starting sequence of odd ears in an ear-decomposition. Indeed, a theorem of Edmonds and Pulleyblank shows that its facets are defined by 2-connected factor-critical graphs, which have an odd ear-decomposition (according to a theorem of Lov\'asz). In particular, $\beta(G) \leq 1$ if and only if the matching polytope of the graph $G$ is completely described by non-negativity, star and odd-circuit inequalities. This is essentially equivalent to the h-perfection of the line-graph of $G$, as observed by Cao and Nemhauser. The complexity of computing $\beta$ is apparently not known. We show that deciding whether $\beta(G)\leq 1$ can be executed efficiently by looking at any ear-decomposition starting with an odd circuit and performing basic modulo-2 computations. Such a greedy-approach is surprising in view of the complexity of the problem in more special cases by Bruhn and Schaudt, and it is simpler than using the Parity Minor Algorithm. Our results imply a simple polynomial-time algorithm testing h-perfection in line-graphs (deciding h-perfection is open in general). We also generalize our approach to binary matroids and show that computing $\beta$ is a Fixed-Parameter-Tractable problem (FPT)

Some heterochromatic theorems for matroids

The anti-Ramsey number of Erd\"os, Simonovits and S\'os from 1973 has become a classic invariant in Graph Theory. To study this invariant in Matroid Theory, we use a related invariant introduce by Arocha, Bracho and Neumann-Lara. The heterochromatic number $hc(H)$ of a non-empty hypergraph $H$ is the smallest integer $k$ such that for every colouring of the vertices of $H$ with exactly $k$ colours, there is a totally multicoloured hyperedge of $H$. Given a rank-$r$ matroid $M$, there are several hypergraphs associated to the matroid that we can consider. One is $C(M)$, the hypergraph where the points are the elements of the matroid and the hyperedges are the circuits of $M$. The other one is $B(M)$, where here the points are the elements and the hyperedges are the bases of the matroid. We prove that $hc(C(M))$ equals $r+1$ when $M$ is not the free matroid $U_{n,n}$, and that if $M$ is a paving matroid, then $hc(B(M))$ equals $r$. Then we explore the case when the hypergraph has the Hamiltonian circuits of the matroid as hyperedges, if any, for a class of paving matroids. We also extend the trivial observation of Erd\"os, Simonovits and S\'os for the anti-Ramsey number for 3-cycles to 3-circuits in projective geometries over finite fields.Comment: Version 1.2, 15 pages, no figure

On Density-Critical Matroids

For a matroid $M$ having $m$ rank-one flats, the density $d(M)$ is $\tfrac{m}{r(M)}$ unless $m = 0$, in which case $d(M)= 0$. A matroid is density-critical if all of its proper minors of non-zero rank have lower density. By a 1965 theorem of Edmonds, a matroid that is minor-minimal among simple matroids that cannot be covered by $k$ independent sets is density-critical. It is straightforward to show that $U_{1,k+1}$ is the only minor-minimal loopless matroid with no covering by $k$ independent sets. We prove that there are exactly ten minor-minimal simple obstructions to a matroid being able to be covered by two independent sets. These ten matroids are precisely the density-critical matroids $M$ such that $d(M) > 2$ but $d(N) \le 2$ for all proper minors $N$ of $M$. All density-critical matroids of density less than $2$ are series-parallel networks. For $k \ge 2$, although finding all density-critical matroids of density at most $k$ does not seem straightforward, we do solve this problem for $k=\tfrac{9}{4}$.Comment: 16 page

On the structure of the h-vector of a paving matroid

We give two proofs that the $h$-vector of any paving matroid is a pure O-sequence, thus answering in the affirmative a conjecture made by R. Stanley, for this particular class of matroids. We also investigate the problem of obtaining good lower bounds for the number of bases of a paving matroid given its rank and number of elements.Comment: We've corrected typos and small mistakes in the previous version. We've also tidied up a few proofs and the reference

Topological Bijections for Oriented Matroids

In previous work by the first and third author with Matthew Baker, a family of bijections between bases of a regular matroid and the Jacobian group of the matroid was given. The core of the work is a geometric construction using zonotopal tilings that produces bijections between the bases of a realizable oriented matroid and the set of $(\sigma,\sigma^*)$-compatible orientations with respect to some acyclic circuit (respectively, cocircuit) signature $\sigma$ (respectively, $\sigma^*$). In this work, we extend this construction to general oriented matroids and circuit (respectively, cocircuit) signatures coming from generic single-element liftings (respectively, extensions). As a corollary, when both signatures are induced by the same lexicographic data, we give a new (bijective) proof of the interpretation of $T_M(1,1)$ using orientation activity due to Gioan and Las Vergnas. Here $T_M(x,y)$ is the Tutte polynomial of the matroid.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, accepted by FPSAC 201

Zeros of Chromatic and Flow Polynomials of Graphs

We survey results and conjectures concerning the zero distribution of chromatic and flow polynomials of graphs, and characteristic polynomials of matroids.Comment: 21 pages, corrected statement of Theorem 34 and some typo

Sparse Hypergraphs and Pebble Game Algorithms

A hypergraph $G=(V,E)$ is $(k,\ell)$-sparse if no subset $V'\subset V$ spans more than $k|V'|-\ell$ hyperedges. We characterize $(k,\ell)$-sparse hypergraphs in terms of graph theoretic, matroidal and algorithmic properties. We extend several well-known theorems of Haas, Lov{\'{a}}sz, Nash-Williams, Tutte, and White and Whiteley, linking arboricity of graphs to certain counts on the number of edges. We also address the problem of finding lower-dimensional representations of sparse hypergraphs, and identify a critical behaviour in terms of the sparsity parameters $k$ and $\ell$. Our constructions extend the pebble games of Lee and Streinu from graphs to hypergraphs

Excluding Kuratowski graphs and their duals from binary matroids

We consider some applications of our characterisation of the internally 4-connected binary matroids with no M(K3,3)-minor. We characterise the internally 4-connected binary matroids with no minor in some subset of {M(K3,3),M*(K3,3),M(K5),M*(K5)} that contains either M(K3,3) or M*(K3,3). We also describe a practical algorithm for testing whether a binary matroid has a minor in the subset. In addition we characterise the growth-rate of binary matroids with no M(K3,3)-minor, and we show that a binary matroid with no M(K3,3)-minor has critical exponent over GF(2) at most equal to four.Comment: Some small change

The Tutte polynomial of some matroids

The Tutte polynomial of a graph or a matroid, named after W. T. Tutte, has the important universal property that essentially any multiplicative graph or network invariant with a deletion and contraction reduction must be an evaluation of it. The deletion and contraction operations are natural reductions for many network models arising from a wide range of problems at the heart of computer science, engineering, optimization, physics, and biology. Even though the invariant is #P-hard to compute in general, there are many occasions when we face the task of computing the Tutte polynomial for some families of graphs or matroids. In this work we compile known formulas for the Tutte polynomial of some families of graphs and matroids. Also, we give brief explanations of the techniques that were use to find the formulas. Hopefully, this will be useful for researchers in Combinatorics and elsewhere.Comment: many figures, 50 page