Lattice path matroids: structural properties

Abstract

This paper studies structural aspects of lattice path matroids. Among the basic topics treated are direct sums, duals, minors, circuits, and connected flats. One of the main results is a characterization of lattice path matroids in terms of fundamental flats, which are special connected flats from which one can recover the paths that define the matroid. We examine some aspects related to key topics in the literature of transversal matroids and we determine the connectivity of lattice path matroids. We also introduce notch matroids, a minor-closed, dual-closed subclass of lattice path matroids, and we find their excluded minors.