Speyer recognized that matroids encode the same data as a special class of
tropical linear spaces and Shaw interpreted tropically certain basic matroid
constructions; additionally, Frenk developed the perspective of tropical linear
spaces as modules over an idempotent semifield. All together, this provides
bridges between the combinatorics of matroids, the algebra of idempotent
modules, and the geometry of tropical linear spaces. The goal of this paper is
to strengthen and expand these bridges by systematically developing the
idempotent module theory of matroids. Applications include a geometric
interpretation of strong matroid maps and the factorization theorem; a
generalized notion of strong matroid maps, via an embedding of the category of
matroids into a category of module homomorphisms; a monotonicity property for
the stable sum and stable intersection of tropical linear spaces; a novel
perspective of fundamental transversal matroids; and a tropical analogue of
reduced row echelon form.Comment: 22 pages; v3 minor corrections/clarifications; to appear in JPA