Discrete Geometry and Combinatorics Seminar

Fiona YoungCornell University
The essential bound of a k -polymatroid and applications to excluded minor problems

Monday, January 29, 2024 - 2:30pm
Malott 206 / ZOOM

The singleton and doubleton minors of a polymatroid encode a surprising amount of information about its structural complexity. Starting with a k-polymatroid ρ, we subtract from it as many maximally-separated matroids as possible. Let the result be an m-polymatroid; this gives rise to a notion of boundedness for ρ. When k is sufficiently large, the bounds on the singleton and doubleton minors of ρ completely determine the bound on ρ. Much of this is motivated and guided by the polytopal perspective of polymatroids. Our results provide an organized framework for thinking about polymatroid excluded minor problems.