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arXiv · 2412.14782

The $k$-fold circuit property for matroids

Bill Jackson·Anthony Nixon·Ben Smith
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Abstract

Double circuits were introduced by Lov\'{a}sz in 1980 as a fundamental tool in his derivation of a min-max formula for the size of a maximum matching in linear matroids. This formula was extended to all matroids satisfying the so-called `double circuit property' by Dress and Lov\'{a}sz in 1987. We extend these notions to $k$-fold circuits for all natural numbers $k$ and show, in particular that several families of matroids which are known to satisfy the double circuit property, satisfy the $k$-fold circuit property for all natural numbers $k$. These families include all pseudomodular matroids (such as full linear, algebraic and transversal matroids) and certain families of count matroids. These results suggest that the $k$-fold circuit property can be used as a measure of how close the lattice of flats of a matroid is to being a modular lattice.

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Bill Jackson, Anthony Nixon, Ben Smith. 2024-12-19. The $k$-fold circuit property for matroids. https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.14782

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