890 research outputs found
Branch-depth: Generalizing tree-depth of graphs
We present a concept called the branch-depth of a connectivity function, that
generalizes the tree-depth of graphs. Then we prove two theorems showing that
this concept aligns closely with the notions of tree-depth and shrub-depth of
graphs as follows. For a graph and a subset of we let
be the number of vertices incident with an edge in and an
edge in . For a subset of , let be the rank
of the adjacency matrix between and over the binary field.
We prove that a class of graphs has bounded tree-depth if and only if the
corresponding class of functions has bounded branch-depth and
similarly a class of graphs has bounded shrub-depth if and only if the
corresponding class of functions has bounded branch-depth, which we
call the rank-depth of graphs.
Furthermore we investigate various potential generalizations of tree-depth to
matroids and prove that matroids representable over a fixed finite field having
no large circuits are well-quasi-ordered by the restriction.Comment: 34 pages, 2 figure
On Density-Critical Matroids
For a matroid having rank-one flats, the density is
unless , in which case . 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 independent sets is
density-critical. It is straightforward to show that is the only
minor-minimal loopless matroid with no covering by 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 such that but for all proper minors of . All density-critical matroids of density
less than are series-parallel networks. For , although finding all
density-critical matroids of density at most does not seem straightforward,
we do solve this problem for .Comment: 16 page
Counting matroids in minor-closed classes
A flat cover is a collection of flats identifying the non-bases of a matroid.
We introduce the notion of cover complexity, the minimal size of such a flat
cover, as a measure for the complexity of a matroid, and present bounds on the
number of matroids on elements whose cover complexity is bounded. We apply
cover complexity to show that the class of matroids without an -minor is
asymptotically small in case is one of the sparse paving matroids
, , , , or , thus confirming a few special
cases of a conjecture due to Mayhew, Newman, Welsh, and Whittle. On the other
hand, we show a lower bound on the number of matroids without -minor
which asymptoticaly matches the best known lower bound on the number of all
matroids, due to Knuth.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figure
Branch-depth: Generalizing tree-depth of graphs
We present a concept called the branch-depth of a connectivity function, that
generalizes the tree-depth of graphs. Then we prove two theorems showing that
this concept aligns closely with the notions of tree-depth and shrub-depth of
graphs as follows. For a graph and a subset of we let
be the number of vertices incident with an edge in and an
edge in . For a subset of , let be the rank
of the adjacency matrix between and over the binary field.
We prove that a class of graphs has bounded tree-depth if and only if the
corresponding class of functions has bounded branch-depth and
similarly a class of graphs has bounded shrub-depth if and only if the
corresponding class of functions has bounded branch-depth, which we
call the rank-depth of graphs.
Furthermore we investigate various potential generalizations of tree-depth to
matroids and prove that matroids representable over a fixed finite field having
no large circuits are well-quasi-ordered by the restriction.Comment: 36 pages, 2 figures. Final versio
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