Field extensions, Derivations, and Matroids over Skew Hyperfields

We show that a field extension $K\subseteq L$ in positive characteristic $p$ and elements $x_e\in L$ for $e\in E$ gives rise to a matroid $M^\sigma$ on ground set $E$ with coefficients in a certain skew hyperfield $L^\sigma$. This skew hyperfield $L^\sigma$ is defined in terms of $L$ and its Frobenius action $\sigma:x\mapsto x^p$. The matroid underlying $M^\sigma$ describes the algebraic dependencies over $K$ among the $x_e\in L$ , and $M^\sigma$ itself comprises, for each $m\in \mathbb{Z}^E$, the space of $K$-derivations of $K\left(x_e^{p^{m_e}}: e\in E\right)$. The theory of matroid representation over hyperfields was developed by Baker and Bowler for commutative hyperfields. We partially extend their theory to skew hyperfields. To prove the duality theorems we need, we use a new axiom scheme in terms of quasi-Pl\"ucker coordinates.Comment: Changed the signing convention for coordinates to better conform to existing concepts in the literature (Tutte group, quasi-determinants

Algebraic matroids and Frobenius flocks

We show that each algebraic representation of a matroid $M$ in positive characteristic determines a matroid valuation of $M$, which we have named the {\em Lindstr\"om valuation}. If this valuation is trivial, then a linear representation of $M$ in characteristic $p$ can be derived from the algebraic representation. Thus, so-called rigid matroids, which only admit trivial valuations, are algebraic in positive characteristic $p$ if and only if they are linear in characteristic $p$. To construct the Lindstr\"om valuation, we introduce new matroid representations called flocks, and show that each algebraic representation of a matroid induces flock representations.Comment: 21 pages, 1 figur

Asymptotics of Symmetry in Matroids

We prove that asymptotically almost all matroids have a trivial automorphism group, or an automorphism group generated by a single transposition. Additionally, we show that asymptotically almost all sparse paving matroids have a trivial automorphism group.Comment: 10 page

On the number of matroids compared to the number of sparse paving matroids

It has been conjectured that sparse paving matroids will eventually predominate in any asymptotic enumeration of matroids, i.e. that $\lim_{n\rightarrow\infty} s_n/m_n = 1$, where $m_n$ denotes the number of matroids on $n$ elements, and $s_n$ the number of sparse paving matroids. In this paper, we show that $$\lim_{n\rightarrow \infty}\frac{\log s_n}{\log m_n}=1.$$ We prove this by arguing that each matroid on $n$ elements has a faithful description consisting of a stable set of a Johnson graph together with a (by comparison) vanishing amount of other information, and using that stable sets in these Johnson graphs correspond one-to-one to sparse paving matroids on $n$ elements. As a consequence of our result, we find that for some $\beta > 0$, asymptotically almost all matroids on $n$ elements have rank in the range $n/2 \pm \beta\sqrt{n}$.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figure

Perfect matroids over hyperfields

We investigate valuated matroids with an additional algebraic structure on their residue matroids. We encode the structure in terms of representability over stringent hyperfields. A hyperfield $H$ is {\em stringent} if $a\boxplus b$ is a singleton unless $a=-b$, for all $a,b\in H$. By a construction of Marc Krasner, each valued field gives rise to a stringent hyperfield. We show that if $H$ is a stringent skew hyperfield, then the vectors of any weak matroid over $H$ are orthogonal to its covectors, and we deduce that weak matroids over $H$ are strong matroids over $H$. Also, we present vector axioms for matroids over stringent skew hyperfields which generalize the vector axioms for oriented matroids and valuated matroids.Comment: 19 page

Computing excluded minors for classes of matroids representable over partial fields

We describe an implementation of a computer search for the "small" excluded minors for a class of matroids representable over a partial field. Using these techniques, we enumerate the excluded minors on at most 15 elements for both the class of dyadic matroids, and the class of 2-regular matroids. We conjecture that there are no other excluded minors for the class of 2-regular matroids; whereas, on the other hand, we show that there is a 16-element excluded minor for the class of dyadic matroids.We describe an implementation of a computer search for the "small" excluded minors for a class of matroids representable over a partial field. Using these techniques, we enumerate the excluded minors on at most 15 elements for both the class of dyadic matroids, and the class of 2-regular matroids. We conjecture that there are no other excluded minors for the class of 2-regular matroids; whereas, on the other hand, we show that there is a 16-element excluded minor for the class of dyadic matroids

How to Design a Stable Serial Knockout Competition

We investigate a new tournament format that consists of a series of individual knockout tournaments; we call this new format a Serial Knockout Competition (SKC). This format has recently been adopted by the Professional Darts Corporation. Depending on the seedings of the players used for each of the knockout tournaments, players can meet in the various rounds (eg first round, second round, ..., semi-final, final) of the knockout tournaments. Following a fairness principle of treating all players equal, we identify an attractive property of an SKC: each pair of players should potentially meet equally often in each of the rounds of the SKC. If the seedings are such that this property is indeed present, we call the resulting SKC stable. In this note we formalize this notion, and we address the question: do there exist seedings for each of the knockout tournaments such that the resulting SKC is stable? We show, using a connection to the Fano plane, that the answer is yes for 8 players. We show how to generalize this to any number of players that is a power of 2, and we provide stable schedules for competitions on 16 and 32 player

De Bruijn graphs and DNA graphs

In this paper we prove the NP-hardness of various recognition problems for subgraphs of De Bruijn graphs. In particular, the recognition of DNA graphs is shown to be NP-hard; DNA graphs are the vertex induced subgraphs of De Bruijn graphs over a four letter alphabet. As a consequence, two open questions from a recent paper by Blazewicz, Hertz, Kobler & de Werra [Discrete Applied Mathematics 98, 1999] are answered in the negative