We provide a formula for the Ehrhart polynomial of the connected matroid of size $n$ and rank $k$ with the least number of bases, also known as a minimal matroid. We prove that their polytopes are Ehrhart positive and $h^*$-real-rooted (and hence unimodal). We prove that the operation of circuit-hyperplane relaxation relates minimal matroids and matroid polytopes subdivisions, and also preserves Ehrhart positivity. We state two conjectures: that indeed all matroids are $h^*$-real-rooted, and that the coefficients of the Ehrhart polynomial of a connected matroid of fixed rank and cardinality are bounded by those of the corresponding minimal matroid and the corresponding uniform matroid.
In this paper, we give a formula for the number of lattice points in the dilations of Schubert matroid polytopes. As applications, we obtain the Ehrhart polynomials of uniform and minimal matroids as special cases, and give a recursive formula for the Ehrhart polynomials of $(a,b)$-Catalan matroids. Ferroni showed that uniform and minimal matroids are Ehrhart positive. We show that all sparse paving Schubert matroids are Ehrhart positive and their Ehrhart polynomials are coefficient-wisely bounded by those of minimal and uniform matroids. This confirms a conjecture of Ferroni for the case of s…
In this article we disprove the conjectures asserting the positivity of the coefficients of the Ehrhart polynomial of matroid polytopes by De Loera, Haws and Köppe (2007) and of generalized permutohedra by Castillo and Liu (2015). We prove constructively that for every $n\geq 19$ there exist connected matroids on $n$ elements that are not Ehrhart positive. Also, we prove that for every $k\geq 3$ there exist connected matroids of rank $k$ that are not Ehrhart positive. Our proofs rely on our previous results on the geometric interpretation of the operation of circuit-hyperplane relaxation and o…
We investigate properties of Ehrhart polynomials for matroid polytopes, independence matroid polytopes, and polymatroids. In the first half of the paper we prove that for fixed rank their Ehrhart polynomials are computable in polynomial time. The proof relies on the geometry of these polytopes as well as a new refined analysis of the evaluation of Todd polynomials. In the second half we discuss two conjectures about the h^*-vector and the coefficients of Ehrhart polynomials of matroid polytopes; we provide theoretical and computational evidence for their validity.
In this paper we investigate the number of integer points lying in dilations of lattice path matroid polytopes. We give a characterization of such points as polygonal paths in the diagram of the lattice path matroid. Furthermore, we prove that lattice path matroid polytopes are affinely equivalent to a family of distributive polytopes. As applications we obtain two new infinite families of matroids verifying a conjecture of De Loera et.~al. and present an explicit formula of the Ehrhart polynomial for one of them.
Over a decade ago De Loera, Haws and Köppe conjectured that Ehrhart polynomials of matroid polytopes have only positive coefficients and that the coefficients of the corresponding $h^*$-polynomials form a unimodal sequence. The first of these intensively studied conjectures has recently been disproved by the first author who gave counterexamples in all ranks greater or equal to three. In this article we complete the picture by showing that Ehrhart polynomials of matroids of lower rank have indeed only positive coefficients. Moreover, we show that they are coefficient-wise bounded by the Ehrhar…
In this paper we investigate the Ehrhart Theory of the independence matroid polytope of uniform matroids. It is proved that these polytopes have an Ehrhart polynomial with positive coefficients. To do that, we prove that indeed all half-open-hypersimplices are Ehrhart positive, and tile disjointly our polytope using them.
This dissertation presents new results on three different themes all related to matroid polytopes. First we investigate properties of Ehrhart polynomials of matroid polytopes, independence matroid polytopes, and polymatroids. We prove that for fixed rank their Ehrhart polynomials are computable in polynomial time. The proof relies on the geometry of these polytopes as well as a new refined analysis of the evaluation of Todd polynomials. Second, we discuss theoretical results regarding the algebraic combinatorics of matroid polytopes. We discuss two conjectures about the h^*-vector and coeffici…
Let $M$ be a regular matroid. The Jacobian group ${\rm Jac}(M)$ of $M$ is a finite abelian group whose cardinality is equal to the number of bases of $M$. This group generalizes the definition of the Jacobian group (also known as the critical group or sandpile group) ${\rm Jac}(G)$ of a graph $G$ (in which case bases of the corresponding regular matroid are spanning trees of $G$). There are many explicit combinatorial bijections in the literature between the Jacobian group of a graph ${\rm Jac}(G)$ and spanning trees. However, most of the known bijections use vertices of $G$ in some essential …
We consider the Ehrhart polynomial of hypersimplices. It is proved that these polynomials have positive coefficients and we give a combinatorial formula for each of them. This settles a problem posed by Stanley and also proves that uniform matroids are Ehrhart positive, an important and yet unsolved particular case of a conjecture posed by De Loera et al. To this end, we introduce a new family of numbers that we call weighted Lah numbers and study some of their properties.
De Loera et al. 2009, showed that when the rank is fixed the Ehrhart polynomial of a matroid polytope can be computed in polynomial time when the number of elements varies. A key to proving this is the fact that the number of simplicial cones in any triangulation of a tangent cone is bounded polynomially in the number of elements when the rank is fixed. The authors speculated whether or not the Ehrhart polynomial could be computed in polynomial time in terms of the number of bases, where the number of elements and rank are allowed to vary. We show here that for the uniform matroid of rank $r$ …
For a given lattice polytope, two fundamental problems within the field of Ehrhart theory are to (1) determine if its (Ehrhart) $h^\ast$-polynomial is unimodal and (2) to determine if its Ehrhart polynomial has only positive coefficients. The former property of a lattice polytope is known as Ehrhart unimodality and the latter property is known as Ehrhart positivity. These two properties are often simultaneously conjectured to hold for interesting families of lattice polytopes, yet they are typically studied in parallel. As to answer a question posed at the 2017 Introductory Workshop to the MSR…
Fix two lattice paths $P$ and $Q$ from $(0,0)$ to $(m,r)$ that use East and North steps with $P $ never going above $Q$. Bonin et al. show that the lattice paths that go from $(0,0)$ to $(m,r)$ and remain bounded by $P$ and $Q$ can be identified with the bases of a particular type of transversal matroid, which we call it a lattice path matroid. In this paper, we consider properties of lattice path matroid polytopes. These are the polytopes associated to the lattice path matroids. We investigate their face structure, decomposition, triangulation, Ehrhart polynomial and volume.
We characterize all signed Minkowski sums that define generalized permutahedra, extending results of Ardila-Benedetti-Doker (2010). We use this characterization to give a complete classification of all positive, translation-invariant, symmetric Minkowski linear functionals on generalized permutahedra. We show that they form a simplicial cone and explicitly describe their generators. We apply our results to prove that the linear coefficients of Ehrhart polynomials of generalized permutahedra, which include matroid polytopes, are non-negative, verifying conjectures of De Loera-Haws-Koeppe (2009)…
In 1976, P. R. Scott characterized the Ehrhart polynomials of convex integral polygons. We study the same question for Ehrhart polynomials and quasi-polynomials of *non*-integral convex polygons. Turning to the case in which the Ehrhart quasi-polynomial has nontrivial quasi-period, we determine the possible minimal periods of the coefficient functions of the Ehrhart quasi-polynomial of a rational polygon.
In this paper, we study nearly Gorensteinness of Ehrhart rings arising from lattice polytopes. We give necessary conditions and sufficient conditions on lattice polytopes for their Ehrhart rings to be nearly Gorenstein. Using this, we give an efficient method for constructing nearly Gorenstein polytopes. Moreover, we determine the structure of nearly Gorenstein (0, 1)-polytopes and characterise nearly Gorensteinness of edge polytopes and graphic matroids.
The Bergman fan of a matroid is the intersection of tropical hyperplanes defined by the circuits. A tropical basis is a subset of the circuits set that defines the Bergman fan. Yu and Yuster posed a question whether every simple regular matroid has a unique minimal tropical basis of its Bergman fan, and verified it for graphic, cographic matroids and $R_{10}$. We show every simple binary matroid has a unique minimal tropical basis. Since the regular matroid is binary, we positively answered the question.
We construct a new family of minimal non-orientable matroids of rank three. Some of these matroids embed in Desarguesian projective planes. This answers a question of Ziegler: for every prime power $q$, find a minimal non-orientable submatroid of the projective plane over the $q$-element field.
In 1976, P. R. Scott characterized the Ehrhart polynomials of convex integral polygons. We study the same question for Ehrhart polynomials and quasi-polynomials of \emph{non}-integral convex polygons. Define a \emph{pseudo-integral polygon}, or \emph{PIP}, to be a convex rational polygon whose Ehrhart quasi-polynomial is a polynomial. The numbers of lattice points on the interior and on the boundary of a PIP determine its Ehrhart polynomial. We show that, unlike the integral case, there exist PIPs with $b=1$ or $b=2$ boundary points and an arbitrary number $I \ge 1$ of interior points. However…
Halin proved that every minimally $k$-connected graph has a vertex of degree $k$. More generally, does every minimally vertically $k$-connected matroid have a $k$-element cocircuit? Results of Murty and Wong give an affirmative answer when $k \le 3$. We show that every minimally vertically $4$-connected matroid with at least six elements has a $4$-element cocircuit, or a $5$-element cocircuit that contains a triangle, with the exception of a specific non-binary $9$-element matroid. Consequently, every minimally vertically $4$-connected binary matroid with at least six elements has a $4$-elemen…
We recover the Tutte polynomial of a matroid, up to change of coordinates, from an Ehrhart-style polynomial counting lattice points in the Minkowski sum of its base polytope and scalings of simplices. Our polynomial has coefficients of alternating sign with a combinatorial interpretation closely tied to the Dawson partition. Our definition extends in a straightforward way to polymatroids, and in this setting our polynomial has Kálmán's internal and external activity polynomials as its univariate specialisations.
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 t…
Employing two models, we show that various counting functions of a random variable defined by restriction or contraction of a ranked set with multiplicity (e.g., classical and arithmetic matroids) have expectations given by the corresponding multivariate Tutte polynomial. The first model is based on a generalization of a convolution formula of Kung (2010), extending from matroids to ranked sets with multiplicities. This model enables us to compute the expectations of many familiar polynomials, such as the chromatic, flow and Ehrhart polynomials, generalizing the classical results of Welsh (199…
The expansion axiom of matroids requires only the existence of some kind of independent sets, not the uniqueness of them. This causes that the base families of some matroids can be reduced while the unions of the base families of these matroids remain unchanged. In this paper, we define unique expansion matroids in which the expansion axiom has some extent uniqueness; we define union minimal matroids in which the base families have some extent minimality. Some properties of them and the relationship between them are studied. First, we propose the concepts of secondary base and forming base fam…
Generalizing polynomials previously studied in the context of linear codes, we define weight polynomials and an enumerator for a matroid $M$. Our main result is that these polynomials are determined by Betti numbers associated with graded minimal free resolutions of the Stanley-Reisner ideals of $M$ and so-called elongations of $M$. Generalizing Greene's theorem from coding theory, we show that the enumerator of a matroid is equivalent to its Tutte polynomial.
Describing the combinatorial structure of the tropical complex $C$ of a tropical matroid polytope, we obtain a formula for the coarse types of the maximal cells of $C$. Due to the connection between tropical complexes and resolutions of monomial ideals, this yields the generators for the corresponding coarse type ideal introduced in a recent paper of Dochtermann, Joswig and Sanyal (2010, preprint arXiv.org:1001.0237). Furthermore, a complete description of the minimal tropical halfspaces of the uniform tropical matroid polytopes, i.e. the tropical hypersimplices, is given.
The Ehrhart polynomial of a lattice polytope $P$ encodes information about the number of integer lattice points in positive integral dilates of $P$. The $h^\ast$-polynomial of $P$ is the numerator polynomial of the generating function of its Ehrhart polynomial. A zonotope is any projection of a higher dimensional cube. We give a combinatorial description of the $h^\ast$-polynomial of a lattice zonotope in terms of refined descent statistics of permutations and prove that the $h^\ast$-polynomial of every lattice zonotope has only real roots and therefore unimodal coefficients. Furthermore, we p…
In this paper, we investigate three problems concerning the toric ideal associated to a matroid. Firstly, we list all matroids $\mathcal M$ such that its corresponding toric ideal $I_{\mathcal M}$ is a complete intersection. Secondly, we handle with the problem of detecting minors of a matroid $\mathcal M$ from a minimal set of binomial generators of $I_{\mathcal M}$. In particular, given a minimal set of binomial generators of $I_{\mathcal M}$ we provide a necessary condition for $\mathcal M$ to have a minor isomorphic to $\mathcal U_{d,2d}$ for $d \geq 2$. This condition is proved to be suff…
In a secret sharing scheme, shares of a secret are distributed to participants in such a way that only certain predetermined sets of participants are qualified to reconstruct the secret. An access structure on a set of participants specifies which sets are to be qualified. The information rate of an access structure is a bound on how efficient a secret sharing scheme for that access structure can be. Marti-Farre and Padro showed that all access structures with information rate greater than two-thirds are matroid-related, and Stinson showed that four of the minor-minimal, non-matroid-related ac…
We show that no minimal vertex triangulation of a closed, connected, orientable 2-manifold of genus 6 admits a polyhedral embedding in R^3. We also provide examples of minimal vertex triangulations of closed, connected, orientable 2-manifolds of genus 5 that do not admit any polyhedral embeddings. We construct a new infinite family of non-realizable triangulations of surfaces. These results were achieved by transforming the problem of finding suitable oriented matroids into a satisfiability problem. This method can be applied to other geometric realizability problems, e.g. for face lattices of…
Let $\mathcal{P} \subset \mathbb{R}^d$ be a lattice polytope of dimension $d$. Let $b$ denote the number of lattice points belonging to the boundary of $\mathcal{P}$ and $c$ that to the interior of $\mathcal{P}$. It follows from a lower bound theorem of Ehrhart polynomials that, when $c > 0$, the volume of $\mathcal{P}$ is bigger than or equal to $(dc + (d-1)b - d^2 + 2)/d!$. In the present paper, via triangulations, a short and elementary proof of the minimal volume formula is given.
