M/E23

A matroid is a combinatorial object based on an abstraction of linear independence in vector spaces and forests in graphs. This talk connects matroid theory with algebra via the so-called von Staudt constructions. These are combinatorial gadgets to encode polynomials in matroids. I will discuss generalized matroid representations as arrangements over division rings, subspace arrangements and as entropy functions together with their relation to group theory. As an application this yields a proof that the conditional independence implication problem from information theory is undecidable. Based on joint work with Rudi Pendavingh and Geva Yashfe.

Lukas Kühne

Bielefeld