ON TANGLES AND MATROIDS

Abstract

Given matroids M and N there are two operations M ⊕2 N and M ⊗ N. When M and N are the cycle matroids of planar graphs these operations have interesting interpretations on the corresponding link diagrams. In fact, given a planar graph there are two well-established methods of generating an alternating link diagram, and in each case the Tutte polynomial of the graph is related to a polynomial invariant (Jones or Homfly) of the link. Switching from one of these methods to the other corresponds in knot theory to tangle insertion in the link diagrams, and in combinatorics to the tensor product of the cycle matroids of the graphs.