Brettell–Chun–Goddyn–Whittle connectivity conjecture for matroids

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Let tt be a positive integer and let MM be a matroid. A matroid is (2t−1)(2t-1)-connected in the usual matroid-connectivity sense, and M\XM\backslash X and M/XM/X denote deletion and contraction of a set XX, respectively. An (s,t)(s,t)-spike is a matroid of the corresponding spike type.

Brettell–Chun–Goddyn–Whittle conjecture. There exists a function f:N→Nf: \mathbb{N} \rightarrow \mathbb{N} such that if MM is a (2t−1)(2t-1)-connected matroid with no circuits or cocircuits of size 2t−12t-1, and

∣E(M)∣≥f(t),|E(M)| \ge f(t),

then either there exists a tt-element set X⊆E(M)X \subseteq E(M) such that either M/XM/X or M\XM\backslash X is (t+1)(t+1)-connected, or MM is a (t,t)(t,t)-spike.

This conjecture was stated by Brettell, Chun, Goddyn, and Whittle; the case t=2t=2 was proved by Williams. The statement is motivated by matroid-connectivity results characterizing spikes as highly connected matroids without small circuits or cocircuits, but its general case is not resolved in the supplied source.

References

Primary source

Nick Brettell and Kevin Grace, “Generalized spikes with circuits and cocircuits of different cardinalities”, arXiv:2209.14524 (2022).

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