In combinatorial mathematics, a Dowling geometry, named after Thomas A. Dowling, is a matroid associated with a group. There is a Dowling geometry of each rank for each group. If the rank is at least 3, the Dowling geometry uniquely determines the group. Dowling geometries have a role in matroid theory as universal objects (Kahn and Kung, 1982); in that respect they are analogous to projective geometries, but based on groups instead of fields.
A Dowling lattice is the geometric lattice of flats associated with a Dowling geometry. The lattice and the geometry are mathematically equivalent: knowing either one determines the other. Dowling lattices, and by implication Dowling geometries, were introduced by Dowling (1973a,b).
A Dowling lattice or geometry of rank n of a group G is often denoted Qn(G).
In his first paper (1973a) Dowling defined the rank-n Dowling lattice of the multiplicative group of a finite field F. It is the set of all those subspaces of the vector space Fn that are generated by subsets of the set E that consists of vectors with at most two nonzero coordinates. The corresponding Dowling geometry is the set of 1-dimensional vector subspaces generated by the elements of E.
In his second paper (1973b) Dowling gave an intrinsic definition of the rank-n Dowling lattice of any finite group G. Let S be the set {1,...,n}. A G-labelled set (T, α) is a set T together with a function α: T→G. Two G-labelled sets, (T, α) and (T, β), are equivalent if there is a group element, g, such that β = gα. An equivalence class is denoted [T, α]. A partial G-partition of S is a set γ = {[B1,α1], ..., [Bk,αk]} of equivalence classes of G-labelled sets such that B1, ..., Bk are nonempty subsets of S that are pairwise disjoint. (k may equal 0.) A partial G-partition γ is said to be ≤ another one, γ*, if
This gives a partial ordering of the set of all partial G-partitions of S. The resulting partially ordered set is the Dowling lattice Qn(G).
The definitions are valid even if F or G is infinite, though Dowling mentioned only finite fields and groups.
A graphical definition was then given by Doubilet, Rota, and Stanley (1972). We give the slightly simpler (but essentially equivalent) graphical definition of Zaslavsky (1991), expressed in terms of gain graphs.
Take n vertices, and between each pair of vertices, v and w, take a set of |G| parallel edges labelled by each of the elements of the group G. The labels are oriented, in that, if the label in the direction from v to w is the group element g, then the label of the same edge in the opposite direction, from w to v, is g−1. The label of an edge therefore depends on the direction of the edge; such labels are called gains. Also add to each vertex a loop whose gain is any value other than 1. (1 is the group identity element.) This gives a graph which is called GKno (note the raised circle). (A slightly different definition is needed for the trivial group; the added edges must be half edges.)
A cycle in the graph then has a gain. The cycle is a sequence of edges, e1e2···ek. Suppose the gains of these edges, in a fixed direction around the cycle, are g1, g2, ..., gk. Then the gain of the cycle is the product, g1g2···gk. The value of this gain is not completely well defined, since it depends on the direction chosen for the cycle and on which is called the "first" edge of the cycle. What is independent of these choices is the answer to the following question: is the gain equal to 1 or not? If it equals 1 under one set of choices, then it is also equal to 1 under all sets of choices.
To define the Dowling geometry, we specify the circuits (minimal dependent sets). The circuits of the matroid are
Thus, the Dowling geometry Qn(G) is the frame matroid (or bias matroid) of the gain graph GKno (the raised circle denotes the presence of loops). Other, equivalent definitions are described in the article on gain graphs.
One reason for interest in Dowling lattices is that the characteristic polynomial is very simple. If L is the Dowling lattice of rank n of a finite group G having m elements, then
an exceptionally simple formula for any geometric lattice.
There is also a Dowling geometry, of rank 3 only, associated with each quasigroup; see Dowling (1973b). This does not generalize in a straightforward way to higher ranks. There is a generalization due to Zaslavsky (2012) that involves n-ary quasigroups.
Combinatorics is an area of mathematics primarily concerned with counting, both as a means and as an end to obtaining results, and certain properties of finite structures. It is closely related to many other areas of mathematics and has many applications ranging from logic to statistical physics and from evolutionary biology to computer science.
In combinatorics, a branch of mathematics, a matroid is a structure that abstracts and generalizes the notion of linear independence in vector spaces. There are many equivalent ways to define a matroid axiomatically, the most significant being in terms of: independent sets; bases or circuits; rank functions; closure operators; and closed sets or flats. In the language of partially ordered sets, a finite simple matroid is equivalent to a geometric lattice.
Discrete geometry and combinatorial geometry are branches of geometry that study combinatorial properties and constructive methods of discrete geometric objects. Most questions in discrete geometry involve finite or discrete sets of basic geometric objects, such as points, lines, planes, circles, spheres, polygons, and so forth. The subject focuses on the combinatorial properties of these objects, such as how they intersect one another, or how they may be arranged to cover a larger object.
In finite geometry, the Fano plane is a finite projective plane with the smallest possible number of points and lines: 7 points and 7 lines, with 3 points on every line and 3 lines through every point. These points and lines cannot exist with this pattern of incidences in Euclidean geometry, but they can be given coordinates using the finite field with two elements. The standard notation for this plane, as a member of a family of projective spaces, is PG(2, 2). Here, PG stands for "projective geometry", the first parameter is the geometric dimension and the second parameter is the order.
In mathematics, a duality translates concepts, theorems or mathematical structures into other concepts, theorems or structures in a one-to-one fashion, often by means of an involution operation: if the dual of A is B, then the dual of B is A. In other cases the dual of the dual – the double dual or bidual – is not necessarily identical to the original. Such involutions sometimes have fixed points, so that the dual of A is A itself. For example, Desargues' theorem is self-dual in this sense under the standard duality in projective geometry.
In the mathematical theory of matroids, a graphic matroid is a matroid whose independent sets are the forests in a given finite undirected graph. The dual matroids of graphic matroids are called co-graphic matroids or bond matroids. A matroid that is both graphic and co-graphic is sometimes called a planar matroid ; these are exactly the graphic matroids formed from planar graphs.
In geometry and combinatorics, an arrangement of hyperplanes is an arrangement of a finite set A of hyperplanes in a linear, affine, or projective space S. Questions about a hyperplane arrangement A generally concern geometrical, topological, or other properties of the complement, M(A), which is the set that remains when the hyperplanes are removed from the whole space. One may ask how these properties are related to the arrangement and its intersection semilattice. The intersection semilattice of A, written L(A), is the set of all subspaces that are obtained by intersecting some of the hyperplanes; among these subspaces are S itself, all the individual hyperplanes, all intersections of pairs of hyperplanes, etc. (excluding, in the affine case, the empty set). These intersection subspaces of A are also called the flats ofA. The intersection semilattice L(A) is partially ordered by reverse inclusion.
In the area of graph theory in mathematics, a signed graph is a graph in which each edge has a positive or negative sign.
In mathematics, a biased graph is a graph with a list of distinguished circles, such that if two circles in the list are contained in a theta graph, then the third circle of the theta graph is also in the list. A biased graph is a generalization of the combinatorial essentials of a gain graph and in particular of a signed graph.
In the mathematical discipline of graph theory, the dual graph of a planar graph G is a graph that has a vertex for each face of G. The dual graph has an edge for each pair of faces in G that are separated from each other by an edge, and a self-loop when the same face appears on both sides of an edge. Thus, each edge e of G has a corresponding dual edge, whose endpoints are the dual vertices corresponding to the faces on either side of e. The definition of the dual depends on the choice of embedding of the graph G, so it is a property of plane graphs rather than planar graphs. For planar graphs generally, there may be multiple dual graphs, depending on the choice of planar embedding of the graph.
A gain graph is a graph whose edges are labelled "invertibly", or "orientably", by elements of a group G. This means that, if an edge e in one direction has label g (a group element), then in the other direction it has label g −1. The label function φ therefore has the property that it is defined differently, but not independently, on the two different orientations, or directions, of an edge e. The group G is called the gain group, φ is the gain function, and the value φ(e) is the gain of e (in some indicated direction). A gain graph is a generalization of a signed graph, where the gain group G has only two elements. See Zaslavsky (1989, 1991).
In graph theory, a peripheral cycle in an undirected graph is, intuitively, a cycle that does not separate any part of the graph from any other part. Peripheral cycles were first studied by Tutte (1963), and play important roles in the characterization of planar graphs and in generating the cycle spaces of nonplanar graphs.
In the mathematical subject of matroid theory, the bicircular matroid of a graph G is the matroid B(G) whose points are the edges of G and whose independent sets are the edge sets of pseudoforests of G, that is, the edge sets in which each connected component contains at most one cycle.
Algebraic combinatorics is an area of mathematics that employs methods of abstract algebra, notably group theory and representation theory, in various combinatorial contexts and, conversely, applies combinatorial techniques to problems in algebra.
Bass–Serre theory is a part of the mathematical subject of group theory that deals with analyzing the algebraic structure of groups acting by automorphisms on simplicial trees. The theory relates group actions on trees with decomposing groups as iterated applications of the operations of free product with amalgamation and HNN extension, via the notion of the fundamental group of a graph of groups. Bass–Serre theory can be regarded as one-dimensional version of the orbifold theory.
An oriented matroid is a mathematical structure that abstracts the properties of directed graphs, vector arrangements over ordered fields, and hyperplane arrangements over ordered fields. In comparison, an ordinary matroid abstracts the dependence properties that are common both to graphs, which are not necessarily directed, and to arrangements of vectors over fields, which are not necessarily ordered.
Jon Hal Folkman was an American mathematician, a student of John Milnor, and a researcher at the RAND Corporation.
In the mathematical theory of matroids, a minor of a matroid M is another matroid N that is obtained from M by a sequence of restriction and contraction operations. Matroid minors are closely related to graph minors, and the restriction and contraction operations by which they are formed correspond to edge deletion and edge contraction operations in graphs. The theory of matroid minors leads to structural decompositions of matroids, and characterizations of matroid families by forbidden minors, analogous to the corresponding theory in graphs.
In mathematics, a partition matroid or partitional matroid is a matroid that is a direct sum of uniform matroids. It is defined over a base set in which the elements are partitioned into different categories. For each category, there is a capacity constraint - a maximum number of allowed elements from this category. The independent sets of a partition matroid are exactly the sets in which, for each category, the number of elements from this category is at most the category capacity.
In mathematics, the Vámos matroid or Vámos cube is a matroid over a set of eight elements that cannot be represented as a matrix over any field. It is named after English mathematician Peter Vámos, who first described it in an unpublished manuscript in 1968.
