Two naturally occurring matroids representable over Q are shown to be dual: the {\it cyclotomic matroid} $μ_n$ represented by the $n^{th}$ roots of unity $1,ζ,ζ^2,...,ζ^{n-1}$ inside the cyclotomic extension $Q(ζ)$, and a direct sum of copies of a certain simplicial matroid, considered originally by Bolker in the context of transportation polytopes. A result of Adin leads to an upper bound for the number of $Q$-bases for $Q(ζ)$ among the $n^{th}$ roots of unity, which is tight if and only if $n$ has at most two odd prime factors. In addition, we study the Tutte polynomial of $μ_n$ in the case that $n$ has two prime factors.
We introduce the notion of a quasi-matroidal class of ordered simplicial complexes: an approximation to the idea of a matroid cryptomorphism in the landscape of ordered simplicial complexes. A quasi-matroidal class contains pure shifted simplicial complexes and ordered matroid independence complexes. The essential property is that if a fixed simplicial complex belongs to this class for every ordering of its vertex set, then it is a matroid independence complex. Some examples of such classes appear implicitly in the matroid theory literature. We introduce various such classes that highlight dif…
The main result is Theorem MAT 11 which states that every finite closure operator is the ground set of a matroid. Its base sets consist of nonredundant covers of of the closure. These are minimal subsets that determine the closure operator using a closure algorithm from the theory of relational databases. For each hereditary collection there is one flat closure that define a matroid or simplicial complexes, but every closure defines a hereditary collection, its keys in database theory. The normalization algorithm by Maier is the basis of this paper. This follows his development, and his releva…
We introduce the notion of k-hyperclique complexes, i.e., the largest simplicial complexes on the set [n] with a fixed k-skeleton. These simplicial complexes are a higher-dimensional analogue of clique (or flag) complexes (case k=2) and they are a rich new class of simplicial complexes. We show that Dirac's theorem on chordal graphs has a higher-dimensional analogue in which graphs and clique complexes get replaced, respectively, by simplicial matroids and k-hyperclique complexes. We prove also a higher-dimensional analogue of Stanley's reformulation of Dirac's theorem on chordal graphs.
Inspired by the work of Izakhian and Rhodes, a theory of representation of hereditary collections by boolean matrices is developed. This corresponds to representation by finite $\vee$-generated lattices. The lattice of flats, defined for hereditary collections, lattices and matrices, plays a central role in the theory. The representations constitute a lattice and the minimal and strictly join irreducible elements are studied, as well as various closure operators.
Assume that the vertices of a graph $G$ are always operational, but the edges of $G$ fail independently with probability $q \in[0,1]$. The \emph{all-terminal reliability} of $G$ is the probability that the resulting subgraph is connected. The all-terminal reliability can be formulated into a polynomial in $q$, and it was conjectured \cite{BC1} that all the roots of (nonzero) reliability polynomials fall inside the closed unit disk. It has since been shown that there exist some connected graphs which have their reliability roots outside the closed unit disk, but these examples seem to be few an…
A recursion due to Kook expresses the Laplacian eigenvalues of a matroid M in terms of the eigenvalues of its deletion M-e and contraction M/e by a fixed element e, and an error term. We show that this error term is given simply by the Laplacian eigenvalues of the pair (M-e, M/e). We further show that by suitably generalizing deletion and contraction to arbitrary simplicial complexes, the Laplacian eigenvalues of shifted simplicial complexes satisfy this exact same recursion. We show that the class of simplicial complexes satisfying this recursion is closed under a wide variety of natural oper…
A catalogue of simplicial hyperplane arrangements was first given by Grünbaum in 1971. These arrangements naturally generalize finite Coxeter arrangements and the weak order through the poset of regions. For simplicial arrangements, posets of regions are in fact lattices. We update Grünbaum's catalogue, providing normals and invariants for all known sporadic simplicial arrangements with up to 37 lines. The weak order is known to be congruence normal, and congruence normality for simplicial arrangements can be determined using polyhedral cones called shards. In this article, we provide addition…
We introduce dual matroids of 2-dimensional simplicial complexes. Under certain necessary conditions, duals matroids are used to characterise embeddability in 3-space in a way analogous to Whitney's planarity criterion. We further use dual matroids to extend a 3-dimensional analogue of Kuratowski's theorem to the class of 2-dimensional simplicial complexes obtained from simply connected ones by identifying vertices or edges.
We find a combinatorial formula which computes the first cotangent cohomology module of Stanley-Reisner rings associated to matroids. For arbitrary simplicial complexes we provide upper bounds for the dimensions of the multigraded components of T^1. For specific degrees we prove that these bounds are reached if and only if the simplicial complex is a matroid, obtaining thus a new characterization for matroids. Furthermore, the graded first cotangent cohomology turns out to be a complete invariant for nondiscrete matroids.
It is known that there are finitely many simplicial complexes (up to isomorphism) with a given number of vertices. Translating to the language of $h$-vectors, there are finitely many simplicial complexes of bounded dimension with $h_1=k$ for any natural number $k$. In this paper we study the question at the other end of the $h$-vector: Are there only finitely many $(d-1)$-dimensional simplicial complexes with $h_d=k$ for any given $k$? The answer is no if we consider general complexes, but when focus on three cases coming from matroids: (i) independence complexes, (ii) broken circuit complexes…
The $f$-vector of a $d$-dimensional polytope $P$ stores the number of faces of each dimension. When $P$ is simplicial the Dehn--Sommerville relations condense the $f$-vector into the $g$-vector, which has length $\lceil{\frac{d+1}{2}}\rceil$. Thus, to determine the $f$-vector of $P$, we only need to know approximately half of its entries. This raises the question: Which $(\lceil{\frac{d+1}{2}}\rceil)$-subsets of the $f$-vector of a general simplicial polytope are sufficient to determine the whole $f$-vector? We prove that the answer is given by the bases of the Catalan matroid.
Stanley conjectured in 1977 that the $h$-vector of a matroid simplicial complex is a pure $O$-sequence. We give simple constructive proofs that the conjecture is true for matroids of rank less than or equal to 3, and corank 2. We used computers to verify that Stanley's conjecture holds for all matroids on at most nine elements.
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 $r$ …
We study ordered matroids and generalized permutohedra from a Hopf theoretic point of view. Our main object is a Hopf monoid in the vector species of extended generalized permutahedra equipped with an order of the coordinates; this monoid extends the Hopf monoid of generalized permutahedra studied by Aguiar and Ardila. Our formula for the antipode is cancellation-free and multiplicity-free, and is supported only on terms that are compatible with the local geometry of the polyhedron. Our result is part of a larger program to understand orderings on ground sets of simplicial complexes (for insta…
The augmented Bergman complex of a matroid is a simplicial complex introduced recently in work of Braden, Huh, Matherne, Proudfoot and Wang. It may be viewed as a hybrid of two well-studied pure shellable simplicial complexes associated to matroids: the independent set complex and Bergman complex. It is shown here that the augmented Bergman complex is also shellable, via two different families of shelling orders. Furthermore, comparing the description of its homotopy type induced from the two shellings re-interprets a known convolution formula counting bases of the matroid. The representation …
We prove that simply connected local 2-dimensional simplicial complexes embed in 3-space if and only if their dual matroids are graphic. Examples are provided that the assumptions of simply connectedness and locality are necessary. This may be regarded as a 3-dimensional analogue of Whitney's planarity criterion from 1932.
Let $Δ$ be a simplicial complex of a matroid $M$. In this paper, we explicitly compute the regularity of all the symbolic powers of a Stanley-Reisner ideal $I_Δ$ in terms of combinatorial data of the matroid $M$. In order to do that, we provide a sharp bound between the arboricity of $M$ and the circumference of its dual $M^*$.
We consider a $q$-analogue of abstract simplicial complexes, called $q$-complexes, and discuss the notion of shellability for such complexes. It is shown that $q$-complexes formed by independent subspaces of a $q$-matroid are shellable. Further, we explicitly determine the homology of $q$-complexes corresponding to uniform $q$-matroids. We also outline some partial results concerning the determination of homology of arbitrary shellable $q$-complexes..
We design an FPRAS to count the number of bases of any matroid given by an independent set oracle, and to estimate the partition function of the random cluster model of any matroid in the regime where $0<q<1$. Consequently, we can sample random spanning forests in a graph and (approximately) compute the reliability polynomial of any matroid. We also prove the thirty year old conjecture of Mihail and Vazirani that the bases exchange graph of any matroid has expansion at least 1. One of our key observations is a close connection between pure simplicial complexes and multiaffine homogeneous polyn…
The Laplacian spectral recursion, satisfied by matroid complexes and shifted complexes, expresses the eigenvalues of the combinatorial Laplacian of a simplicial complex in terms of its deletion and contraction with respect to vertex e, and the relative simplicial pair of the deletion modulo the contraction. We generalize this recursion to relative simplicial pairs, which we interpret as intervals in the Boolean algebra. The deletion modulo contraction term is replaced by the result of removing from the interval all pairs of faces in the interval that differ only by vertex e. We show that shift…
This is both an expository and research paper where we advocate a systematic study of continuous analogues of finite partially ordered sets, convex polytopes, oriented matroids, arrangements of subspaces, finite simplicial complexes, and other combinatorial structures. Among the illustrative examples are an Euler formula for a class of `continuous convex polytopes' (conjectured by Kalai and Wigderson), a duality result for a class of `continuous matroids', a calculation of the Euler characteristic of ideals in the Grassmannian poset (related to a problem of Gian-Carlo Rota), an exposition of t…
The Folkman-Lawrence topological representation theorem, which states that every (loop-free) oriented matroid of rank $r$ can be represented as a pseudosphere arrangement on the $(r-1)$-dimensional sphere $S^{r-1}$, is one of the most outstanding results in oriented matroid theory. In this paper, we provide a lower-dimensional version of the topological representation theorem for uniform matroid polytopes of rank $4$. We introduce $2$-weak configurations of points and pseudocircles ($2$-weak PPC configurations) on $S^2$ and prove that every uniform matroid polytope of rank $4$ can be represent…
This paper shows that simplicial oriented geometries can be characterized as groupoids with root systems having certain favorable properties, as conjectured by the first author. The proof first translates Handa's characterization of oriented matroids, as acycloids which remain acycloids under iterated elementary contractions, into the language of groupoids with root systems, then establishes favorable lattice theoretic properties of a generalization of a construction which Brink and Howlett used in their study of normalizers of parabolic subgroups of Coxeter groups and uses Björner-Edelman-Zie…
For a simplicial complex ${\mathcal C}$ denote by $β({\mathcal C})$ the minimal number of edges from ${\mathcal C}$ needed to cover the ground set. If ${\mathcal C}$ is a matroid then for every partition $A_1, \ldots, A_m$ of the ground set there exists a set $S \in {\mathcal C}$ meeting each $A_i$ in at least $\frac{|A_i|}{β({\mathcal C})}$ elements. We conjecture that a slightly weaker result is true for the intersections of two matroids: if ${\mathcal D}={\mathcal P} \cap {\mathcal Q}$, where ${\mathcal P},{\mathcal Q}$ are matroids on the same ground set $V$ and $β({\mathcal P}), β({\mathc…
