Small Cocircuits in Minimally Vertically 4-Connected Matroids

Abstract

Halin proved that every minimally $k$-connected graph has a vertex of degree $k$. More generally, does every minimally vertically $k$-connected matroid have a $k$-element cocircuit? Results of Murty and Wong give an affirmative answer when $k \le 3$. We show that every minimally vertically $4$-connected matroid with at least six elements has a $4$-element cocircuit, or a $5$-element cocircuit that contains a triangle, with the exception of a specific nonbinary $9$-element matroid. Consequently, every minimally vertically $4$-connected binary matroid with at least six elements has a $4$-element cocircuit.