Tutte seminar - Jim Geelen

Matroids, Diophantine equations, and decidability

Abstract:

For a field F we consider the problem of deciding whether or not a given matroid is representable over the field. We show that this is equivalent to the problem of deciding whether or not a given system of Diophantine equations has a solution over F. This is joint work with Shalev Ben David. 

The talk will be accessible to a general mathematics audience. Knowledge of matroid theory is not required.