Oriented cobicircular matroids are $GSP$

TL;DR

This paper explores the properties of oriented cobicircular matroids, demonstrating they are generalized series parallel (GSP), and discusses implications for graph coloring conjectures and matroid classes.

Contribution

It proves that oriented cobicircular matroids are GSP, extending the class of known GSP matroids and providing new techniques for establishing GSP status.

Findings

Oriented cobicircular matroids are GSP.

Disproved conjecture that all gammoids have positive colines.

Introduced a simpler method to show certain matroids are GSP.

Abstract

Colourings and flows are well-known dual notions in Graph Theory. In turn, the definition of flows in graphs naturally extends to flows in oriented matroids. So, the colour-flow duality gives a generalization of Hadwiger's conjecture about graph colourings, to a conjecture about coflows of oriented matroids. The first non-trivial case of Hadwiger's conjecture for oriented matroids reads as follows. If $\mathcal{O}$ is an $M(K_4)$-minor free oriented matroid, then $\mathcal{O}$ has a now-where $3$-coflow, i.e., it is $3$-colourable in the sense of Hochst\"attler-Ne\v{s}et\v{r}il. The class of generalized series parallel ($GSP$) oriented matroids is a class of $3$-colourable oriented matroids with no $M(K_4)$-minor. So far, the only technique towards proving that all orientations of a class $\mathcal{C}$ of $M(K_4)$-minor free matroids are $GSP$ (and thus $3$-colourable), has been to show that every matroid in $\mathcal{C}$ has a positive coline. Towards proving Hadwiger's conjecture for the class of gammoids, Goddyn, Hochst\"attler, and Neudauer conjectured that every gammoid has a positive coline. In this work we disprove this conjecture by exhibiting an infinite class of strict gammoids that do not have positive colines. We conclude by proposing a simpler technique for showing that certain oriented matroids are $GSP$. In particular, we recover that oriented lattice path matroids are $GSP$, and we show that oriented cobicircular matroids are $GSP$.