Oriented matroid

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.[1] In comparison, an
ordinary (i.e., non-oriented) 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.[2] [3] Oriented-matroid theory allows a combinatorial
approach to the max-flow min-cut theorem. A
All oriented matroids have an underlying matroid. Thus, network with the value of flow equal to the
results on ordinary matroids can be applied to oriented capacity of an s-t cut
matroids. However, the converse is false; some matroids
cannot become an oriented matroid by orienting an
underlying structure (e.g., circuits or independent sets).[4] The distinction between matroids and oriented
matroids is discussed further below.

Matroids are often useful in areas such as dimension theory and algorithms. Because of an oriented
matroid's inclusion of additional details about the oriented nature of a structure, its usefulness extends
further into several areas including geometry and optimization.

Background
In order to abstract the concept of orientation on the edges of a graph to sets, one needs the ability to assign
"direction" to the elements of a set. The way this achieved is with the following definition of signed sets.

A signed set, , combines a set of objects, , with a partition of that set into two subsets:
and .

The members of are called the positive elements; members of are the negative
elements.

The set is called the support of .

The empty signed set, , is defined as the empty set combined with a "partition" of it into
two empty sets: and .
The signed set is the opposite of , i.e., , if and only if and

Given an element of the support , we will write for a positive element and for a negative element.
In this way, a signed set is just adding negative signs to distinguished elements. This will make sense as a
"direction" only when we consider orientations of larger structures. Then the sign of each element will
encode its direction relative to this orientation.

Axiomatizations
Like ordinary matroids, several equivalent systems of axioms exist. (Such structures that possess multiple
equivalent axiomatizations are called cryptomorphic.)

Circuit axioms

Let be any set. We refer to as the ground set. Let be a collection of signed sets, each of which is
supported by a subset of . If the following axioms hold for , then equivalently is the set of signed
circuits for an oriented matroid on .

(C0)
(C1) (symmetric)
(C2) (incomparable)
(C3) (weak elimination)

Vector Axioms

The composition of signed sets and is the signed set defined by ,

, and . The vectors of an oriented
matroid are the compositions of circuits. The vectors of an oriented matroid satisfy the following axioms:

for all ,
for all , and ,
there is a , such that
,
, and
.

Chirotope axioms

Let be as above. For each non-negative integer , a chirotope of rank is a function

that satisfies the following axioms:

(B0) (non-trivial): is not identically zero

(B1) (alternating): For any permutation and ,
, where is the sign of the permutation.
(B2) (exchange): For any such that
for each , then we also have
.
The term chirotope is derived from the mathematical notion of chirality, which is a concept abstracted from
chemistry, where it is used to distinguish molecules that have the same structure except for a reflection.

Equivalence

Every chirotope of rank gives rise to a set of bases of a matroid on consisting of those -element
[5]
subsets that assigns a nonzero value. The chirotope can then sign the circuits of that matroid. If is a
circuit of the described matroid, then where is a basis. Then
can be signed with positive elements

and negative elements the complement. Thus a chirotope gives rise to the oriented bases of an oriented
matroid. In this sense, (B0) is the nonempty axiom for bases and (B2) is the basis exchange property.

Examples
Oriented matroids are often introduced (e.g., Bachem and Kern) as an abstraction for directed graphs or
systems of linear inequalities. Below are the explicit constructions.

Directed graphs

Given a digraph, we define a signed circuit from the standard circuit of the graph by the following method.
The support of the signed circuit is the standard set of edges in a minimal cycle. We go along the cycle
in the clockwise or anticlockwise direction assigning those edges whose orientation agrees with the
direction to the positive elements and those edges whose orientation disagrees with the direction to the
negative elements . If is the set of all such , then is the set of signed circuits of an oriented
matroid on the set of edges of the directed graph.

If we consider the directed graph on the right, then we can see that there are only two
circuits, namely and . Then there are only four
possible signed circuits corresponding to clockwise and anticlockwise orientations,
namely , , , and
. These four sets form the set of signed circuits of an oriented A directed graph
matroid on the set .

Linear algebra

If is any finite subset of , then the set of minimal linearly dependent sets forms the circuit set of a
matroid on . To extend this construction to oriented matroids, for each circuit there is a
minimal linear dependence

with . Then the signed circuit has positive elements and

negative elements . The set of all such forms the set of signed circuits of an
oriented matroid on . Oriented matroids that can be realized this way are called representable.
Given the same set of vectors , we can define the same oriented matroid with a chirotope
. For any let

where the right hand side of the equation is the sign of the determinant. Then is the chirotope of the same
oriented matroid on the set .

Hyperplane arrangements

A real hyperplane arrangement is a finite set of hyperplanes in , each containing

the origin. By picking one side of each hyperplane to be the positive side, we obtain an arrangement of
half-spaces. A half-space arrangement breaks down the ambient space into a finite collection of cells, each
defined by which side of each hyperplane it lands on. That is, assign each point to the signed set
with if is on the positive side of and if is on the negative side of
. This collection of signed sets defines the set of covectors of the oriented matroid, which are the vectors
of the dual oriented matroid.[6]

Convex polytope

Günter M. Ziegler introduces oriented matroids via convex polytopes.

Results

Orientability

A standard matroid is called orientable if its circuits are the supports of signed circuits of some oriented
matroid. It is known that all real representable matroids are orientable. It is also known that the class of
orientable matroids is closed under taking minors, however the list of forbidden minors for orientable
matroids is known to be infinite.[7] In this sense, oriented matroids is a much stricter formalization than
regular matroids.

Duality

Much like matroids have unique dual, oriented matroids have unique orthogonal dual. What this means is
the underlying matroids are dual and that the cocircuits are signed so that they are orthogonal to every
circuit. Two signed sets are said to be orthogonal if the intersection of their supports is empty or if the
restriction of their positive elements to the intersection and negative elements to the intersection form two
nonidentical and non-opposite signed sets. The existence and uniqueness of the dual oriented matroid
depends on the fact that every signed circuit is orthogonal to every signed cocircuit.[8] To see why
orthogonality is necessary for uniqueness one needs only to look to the digraph example above. We know
that for planar graphs, that the dual of the circuit matroid is the circuit matroid of the graph's planar dual.
Thus there are as many different oriented matroids that are dual as there are ways to orient a graph and its
dual.
To see the explicit construction of this unique orthogonal dual oriented matroid, consider an oriented
matroid's chirotope . If we consider a list of elements of as a cyclic
permutation then we define to be the sign of the associated permutation. If
is defined as

then is the chirotope of the unique orthogonal dual oriented matroid.[9]

Topological representation

Not all oriented matroids are representable—that is, not all have
realizations as point configurations, or, equivalently, hyperplane
arrangements. However, in some sense, all oriented matroids come
close to having realizations are hyperplane arrangements. In particular,
the Folkman–Lawrence topological representation theorem states
that any oriented matroid has a realization as an arrangement of
pseudospheres. A -dimensional pseudosphere is an embedding of
such that there exists a homeomorphism
so that embeds as an equator of . In This is an example of a
this sense a pseudosphere is just a tame sphere (as opposed to wild pseudoline arrangement that is
distinct from any line
spheres). A pseudosphere arrangement in is a collection of
arrangement.
pseudospheres that intersect along pseudospheres. Finally, the Folkman
Lawrence topological representation theorem states that every oriented
matroid of rank can be obtained from a pseudosphere
arrangement in . [10] It is named after Jon Folkman and Jim Lawrence, who published it in 1978.

Geometry

The theory of oriented matroids has influenced the

development of combinatorial geometry, especially the
theory of convex polytopes, zonotopes, and of
configurations of vectors (arrangements of
hyperplanes). [11] Many results—Carathéodory's
theorem, Helly's theorem, Radon's theorem, the Hahn–
Banach theorem, the Krein–Milman theorem, the
lemma of Farkas—can be formulated using appropriate
A zonotope, which is a Minkowski sum of line
oriented matroids.[12]
segments, is a fundamental model for oriented
matroids. The sixteen dark red points (on the right)
form the Minkowski sum of the four non-convex
Optimization
sets (on the left), each of which consists of a pair
of red points. Their convex hulls (shaded pink)
The development of an axiom system for oriented
contain plus signs (+): The right plus sign is the
matroids was initiated by R. Tyrrell Rockafellar to
sum of the left plus signs.
describe the sign patterns of the matrices arising
through the pivoting operations of Dantzig's simplex
algorithm; Rockafellar was inspired by Albert W. Tucker's studies of such sign patterns in "Tucker
tableaux". [13]
The theory of oriented matroids has led to breakthroughs in
combinatorial optimization. In linear programming, it was the
language in which Robert G. Bland formulated his pivoting rule,
by which the simplex algorithm avoids cycles. Similarly, it was
used by Terlaky and Zhang to prove that their criss-cross
algorithms have finite termination for linear programming
problems. Similar results were made in convex quadratic
programming by Todd and Terlaky.[14] It has been applied to
linear-fractional programming,[15] quadratic-programming
problems, and linear complementarity problems.[16][17][18]
In convex geometry, the simplex
Outside of combinatorial optimization, OM theory also appears algorithm for linear programming is
in convex minimization in Rockafellar's theory of "monotropic interpreted as tracing a path along the
programming" and related notions of "fortified descent".[19] vertices of a convex polyhedron.
Similarly, matroid theory has influenced the development of Oriented matroid theory studies the
combinatorial algorithms, particularly the greedy algorithm.[20] combinatorial invariants that are
More generally, a greedoid is useful for studying the finite revealed in the sign patterns of the
termination of algorithms. matrices that appear as pivoting
algorithms exchange bases.

References
1. R. Tyrrell Rockafellar 1969. Anders Björner et alia, Chapters 1-3. Jürgen Bokowski, Chapter
1. Günter M. Ziegler, Chapter 7.
2. Björner et alia, Chapters 1-3. Bokowski, Chapters 1-4.
3. Because matroids and oriented matroids are abstractions of other mathematical
abstractions, nearly all the relevant books are written for mathematical scientists rather than
for the general public. For learning about oriented matroids, a good preparation is to study
the textbook on linear optimization by Nering and Tucker, which is infused with oriented-
matroid ideas, and then to proceed to Ziegler's lectures on polytopes.
4. Björner et alia, Chapter 7.9.
5. Björner et alia, Chapter 3.5
6. * Björner, Anders; Las Vergnas, Michel; Sturmfels, Bernd; White, Neil; Ziegler, Günter (1999).
Oriented Matroids. Encyclopedia of Mathematics and Its Applications. Vol. 46 (2nd ed.).
Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-77750-6. OCLC 776950824 (https://www.worl
dcat.org/oclc/776950824). Zbl 0944.52006 (https://zbmath.org/?format=complete&q=an:094
4.52006).
7. Björner et alia, Chapter 7.9
8. Björner et alia, Chapter 3.4
9. Björner et alia, Chapter 3.6
10. Björner et alia, Chapter 5.2
11. Bachem and Kern, Chapters 1–2 and 4–9. Björner et alia, Chapters 1–8. Ziegler, Chapter 7–
8. Bokowski, Chapters 7–10.
12. Bachem and Wanka, Chapters 1–2, 5, 7–9. Björner et alia, Chapter 8.
13. Rockafellar, R. Tyrrell (1969). "The elementary vectors of a subspace of (1967)" (http://w
ww.math.washington.edu/~rtr/papers/rtr-ElemVectors.pdf) (PDF). In R. C. Bose; Thomas A.
Dowling (eds.). Combinatorial Mathematics and its Applications. The University of North
Carolina Monograph Series in Probability and Statistics. Chapel Hill, North Carolina:
University of North Carolina Press. pp. 104–127. MR 0278972 (https://mathscinet.ams.org/m
athscinet-getitem?mr=0278972).
14. Björner et alia, Chapters 8–9. Fukuda and Terlaky. Compare Ziegler.
15. Illés, Szirmai & Terlaky (1999)
16. Fukuda & Terlaky (1997)
17. Fukuda & Terlaky (1997, p. 385)
18. Fukuda & Namiki (1994, p. 367)
19. Rockafellar 1984 and 1998.
20. Lawler. Rockafellar 1984 and 1998.

Further reading

Books
Bachem, Achim; Kern, Walter (1992). Linear Programming Duality: An Introduction to
Oriented Matroids. Universitext. Springer-Verlag. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-58152-6 (https://do
i.org/10.1007%2F978-3-642-58152-6). ISBN 978-3-540-55417-2. MR 1230380 (https://math
scinet.ams.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=1230380).
Björner, Anders; Las Vergnas, Michel; Sturmfels, Bernd; White, Neil; Ziegler, Günter (1999).
Oriented Matroids. Encyclopedia of Mathematics and Its Applications. Vol. 46 (2nd ed.).
Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-77750-6. Zbl 0944.52006 (https://zbmath.or
g/?format=complete&q=an:0944.52006).
Bokowski, Jürgen (2006). Computational oriented matroids. Equivalence classes of matrices
within a natural framework. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-84930-2.
Zbl 1120.52011 (https://zbmath.org/?format=complete&q=an:1120.52011).
Lawler, Eugene (2001). Combinatorial Optimization: Networks and Matroids. Dover.
ISBN 978-0-486-41453-9. Zbl 1058.90057 (https://zbmath.org/?format=complete&q=an:105
8.90057).
Evar D. Nering and Albert W. Tucker, 1993, Linear Programs and Related Problems,
Academic Press. (elementary)
Rockafellar, R. Tyrrell (1984). Network Flows and Monotropic Optimization. Wiley-
Interscience. republished by Athena Scientific of Dimitri Bertsekas, 1998.
Ziegler, Günter M. (1994). Lectures on Polytopes. New York: Springer-Verlag.
Richter-Gebert, Jürgen; Ziegler, Günter M. (1997). "Oriented Matroids". In Goodman, Jacob
E.; O'Rourke, Joseph (eds.). Handbook of Discrete and Computational Geometry (https://arc
hive.org/details/handbookofdiscre00jaco). Boca Raton: CRC Press. pp. 111–132 (https://arc
hive.org/details/handbookofdiscre00jaco/page/111). ISBN 9780849385247.

Articles
A. Bachem, A. Wanka, Separation theorems for oriented matroids, Discrete Math. 70 (1988)
303–310.
Robert G. Bland, New finite pivoting rules for the simplex method, Math. Oper. Res. 2 (1977)
103–107.
Folkman, Jon; Lawrence, Jim (October 1978). "Oriented Matroids" (https://doi.org/10.1016%
2F0095-8956%2878%2990039-4). J. Combin. Theory Ser. B. 25 (2): 199–236.
doi:10.1016/0095-8956(78)90039-4 (https://doi.org/10.1016%2F0095-8956%2878%299003
9-4).
 Fukuda, Komei; Terlaky, Tamás (1997). Thomas M. Liebling; Dominique de Werra (eds.).
"Criss-cross methods: A fresh view on pivot algorithms" (https://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/77
270/files/10107_2007_Article_BF02614325.pdf) (PDF). Mathematical Programming, Series
B. Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Co. 79 (1–3): 369–395. doi:10.1007/BF02614325
(https://doi.org/10.1007%2FBF02614325). MR 1464775 (https://mathscinet.ams.org/mathsci
net-getitem?mr=1464775). S2CID 2794181 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:27941
81).
Fukuda, Komei; Namiki, Makoto (March 1994). "On extremal behaviors of Murty's least index
method". Mathematical Programming. 64 (1): 365–370. doi:10.1007/BF01582581 (https://do
i.org/10.1007%2FBF01582581). MR 1286455 (https://mathscinet.ams.org/mathscinet-getite
m?mr=1286455). S2CID 21476636 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:21476636).
Illés, Tibor; Szirmai, Ákos; Terlaky, Tamás (1999). "The finite criss-cross method for
hyperbolic programming" (http://www.cas.mcmaster.ca/~terlaky/files/dut-twi-96-103.ps.gz).
European Journal of Operational Research. 114 (1): 198–214. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.36.7090 (htt
ps://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.36.7090). doi:10.1016/S0377-
2217(98)00049-6 (https://doi.org/10.1016%2FS0377-2217%2898%2900049-6). ISSN 0377-
2217 (https://www.worldcat.org/issn/0377-2217).
R. Tyrrell Rockafellar. The elementary vectors of a subspace of , in Combinatorial
Mathematics and its Applications, R. C. Bose and T. A. Dowling (eds.), Univ. of North
Carolina Press, 1969, 104–127.
Roos, C. (1990). "An exponential example for Terlaky's pivoting rule for the criss-cross
simplex method". Mathematical Programming. Series A. 46 (1): 79–84.
doi:10.1007/BF01585729 (https://doi.org/10.1007%2FBF01585729). MR 1045573 (https://m
athscinet.ams.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=1045573). S2CID 33463483 (https://api.semantic
scholar.org/CorpusID:33463483).
Terlaky, T. (1985). "A convergent criss-cross method". Optimization: A Journal of
Mathematical Programming and Operations Research. 16 (5): 683–690.
doi:10.1080/02331938508843067 (https://doi.org/10.1080%2F02331938508843067).
ISSN 0233-1934 (https://www.worldcat.org/issn/0233-1934). MR 0798939 (https://mathscine
t.ams.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=0798939).
Terlaky, Tamás (1987). "A finite crisscross method for oriented matroids" (https://doi.org/10.1
016%2F0095-8956%2887%2990049-9). Journal of Combinatorial Theory. Series B. 42 (3):
319–327. doi:10.1016/0095-8956(87)90049-9 (https://doi.org/10.1016%2F0095-8956%288
7%2990049-9). ISSN 0095-8956 (https://www.worldcat.org/issn/0095-8956). MR 0888684 (h
ttps://mathscinet.ams.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=0888684).
Terlaky, Tamás; Zhang, Shu Zhong (1993). "Pivot rules for linear programming: A Survey on
recent theoretical developments". Annals of Operations Research. 46–47 (1): 203–233.
CiteSeerX 10.1.1.36.7658 (https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.36.76
58). doi:10.1007/BF02096264 (https://doi.org/10.1007%2FBF02096264). ISSN 0254-5330
(https://www.worldcat.org/issn/0254-5330). MR 1260019 (https://mathscinet.ams.org/mathsci
net-getitem?mr=1260019). S2CID 6058077 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:60580
77).
Michael J. Todd, Linear and quadratic programming in oriented matroids, J. Combin. Theory
Ser. B 39 (1985) 105–133.
Wang, Zhe Min (1987). "A finite conformal-elimination free algorithm over oriented matroid
programming". Chinese Annals of Mathematics (Shuxue Niankan B Ji). Series B. 8 (1): 120–
125. ISSN 0252-9599 (https://www.worldcat.org/issn/0252-9599). MR 0886756 (https://math
scinet.ams.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=0886756).

On the web
Ziegler, Günter (1998). "Oriented Matroids Today" (https://www.combinatorics.org/ojs/index.p
 hp/eljc/article/view/DS4). The Electronic Journal of Combinatorics: DS4: Sep 10–1998.
doi:10.37236/25 (https://doi.org/10.37236%2F25).
Malkevitch, Joseph. "Oriented Matroids: The Power of Unification" (https://www.ams.org/feat
urecolumn/archive/oriented1.html). Feature Column. American Mathematical Society.
Retrieved 2009-09-14.

External links
Komei Fukuda (ETH Zentrum, Zurich) (https://web.archive.org/web/20110728105602/http://
www.ifor.math.ethz.ch/~fukuda/) with publications (https://web.archive.org/web/2011072810
5643/http://www.ifor.math.ethz.ch/~fukuda/publ/publ.html) including Oriented matroid
programming (1982 Ph.D. thesis) (ftp://ftp.ifor.math.ethz.ch/pub/fukuda/reports/fukuda1982th
esis.pdf)
Tamás Terlaky (Lehigh University) (http://coral.ie.lehigh.edu/~terlaky/) with publications (htt
p://coral.ie.lehigh.edu/~terlaky/publications)

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