On perturbations of highly connected dyadic matroids

Geelen, Gerards, and Whittle [3] announced the following result: let $q = p^k$ be a prime power, and let $\mathcal{M}$ be a proper minor-closed class of $\mathrm{GF}(q)$-representable matroids, which does not contain $\mathrm{PG}(r-1,p)$ for sufficiently high $r$. There exist integers $k, t$ such that every vertically $k$-connected matroid in $\mathcal{M}$ is a rank-$(\leq t)$ perturbation of a frame matroid or the dual of a frame matroid over $\mathrm{GF}(q)$. They further announced a characterization of the perturbations through the introduction of subfield templates and frame templates. We show a family of dyadic matroids that form a counterexample to this result. We offer several weaker conjectures to replace the ones in [3], discuss consequences for some published papers, and discuss the impact of these new conjectures on the structure of frame templates.Comment: Version 3 has a new title and a few other minor corrections; 38 pages, including a 6-page Jupyter notebook that contains SageMath code and that is also available in the ancillary file

The highly connected even-cycle and even-cut matroids

The classes of even-cycle matroids, even-cycle matroids with a blocking pair, and even-cut matroids each have hundreds of excluded minors. We show that the number of excluded minors for these classes can be drastically reduced if we consider in each class only the highly connected matroids of sufficient size.Comment: Version 2 is a major revision, including a correction of an error in the statement of one of the main results and improved exposition. It is 89 pages, including a 33-page Jupyter notebook that contains SageMath code and that is also available in the ancillary file

On the existence of asymptotically good linear codes in minor-closed classes

Let $\mathcal{C} = (C_1, C_2, \ldots)$ be a sequence of codes such that each $C_i$ is a linear $[n_i,k_i,d_i]$-code over some fixed finite field $\mathbb{F}$, where $n_i$ is the length of the codewords, $k_i$ is the dimension, and $d_i$ is the minimum distance. We say that $\mathcal{C}$ is asymptotically good if, for some $\varepsilon > 0$ and for all $i$, $n_i \geq i$, $k_i/n_i \geq \varepsilon$, and $d_i/n_i \geq \varepsilon$. Sequences of asymptotically good codes exist. We prove that if $\mathcal{C}$ is a class of GF$(p^n)$-linear codes (where $p$ is prime and $n \geq 1$), closed under puncturing and shortening, and if $\mathcal{C}$ contains an asymptotically good sequence, then $\mathcal{C}$ must contain all GF$(p)$-linear codes. Our proof relies on a powerful new result from matroid structure theory

New Korkin-Zoloratev inequalities : implementation and numerical data

This technical report discusses the mathematical details and the implementation of the methods discussed in the accompanying paper [PZ06]. In particular a method to find a finite list of inequalities that certify Korkin–Zolotarev reducedness of a quadratic form is presented. Moreover a semidefinite programming relaxation of the space of KZ-reduced quadratic forms is described in detail, together with a branching strategy to optimize over this space. Finally the implementation of these methods is discussed, together with some hints on how to compile and use the programs. The two digital appendices, which can be obtained from the SPOR reports website†, contain an implementation of the methods discussed and numerical data that prove the theorems in [PZ06]

An obstacle to a decomposition theorem for near-regular matroids

Seymour's Decomposition Theorem for regular matroids states that any matroid representable over both GF(2) and GF(3) can be obtained from matroids that are graphic, cographic, or isomorphic to R10 by 1-, 2-, and 3-sums. It is hoped that similar characterizations hold for other classes of matroids, notably for the class of near-regular matroids. Suppose that all near-regular matroids can be obtained from matroids that belong to a few basic classes through k-sums. Also suppose that these basic classes are such that, whenever a class contains all graphic matroids, it does not contain all cographic matroids. We show that in that case 3-sums will not suffice.Comment: 11 pages, 1 figur

Fan-extensions in fragile matroids

If S is a set of matroids, then the matroid M is S-fragile if, for every element e in E(M), either M\e or M/e has no minor isomorphic to a member of S. Excluded-minor characterizations often depend, implicitly or explicitly, on understanding classes of fragile matroids. In certain cases, when F is a minor-closed class of S-fragile matroids, and N is in F, the only members of F that contain N as a minor are obtained from N by increasing the length of fans. We prove that if this is the case, then we can certify it with a finite case-analysis. The analysis involves examining matroids that are at most two elements larger than N.Comment: Small revisions and correction

New Korkin-Zolotarev inequalities

Korkin and Zolotarev showed that if \sum_i A_i\Big(x_i-\sum_{j>i} \alpha_{ij}x_j\Big)^2 is the Lagrange expansion of a Korkin–Zolotarev (KZ-) reduced positive definite quadratic form, then $A_{i+1}\geq \frac{3}{4} A_i$ and $A_{i+2}\geq \frac{2}{3}A_i$. They showed that the implied bound $A_{5}\geq \frac{4}{9}A_1$ is not attained by any KZ-reduced form. We propose a method to optimize numerically over the set of Lagrange expansions of KZ-reduced quadratic forms using a semidefinite relaxation combined with a branch and bound process. We use a rounding technique to derive exact results from the numerical data. Applying these methods, we prove several new linear inequalities on the $A_i$ of any KZ-reduced form, one of them being $A_{i+4}\geq (\frac{15}{32}-2 \cdot 10^{-5})A_i$. We also give a form with $A_{5}= \frac{15}{32}A_1$. These new inequalities are then used to study the cone of outer coefficients of KZ-reduced forms, to find bounds on Hermite's constant, and to give better estimates on the quality of $k$-block KZ-reduced lattice bases