Infinite strict gammoids

Abstract

Finite strict gammoids, introduced in the early 1970's, are matroids defined via finite digraphs equipped with some set of sinks: a set of vertices is independent if it admits a linkage to these sinks. An independent set is maximal precisely if it admits a linkage onto the sinks. In the infinite setting, this characterization of the maximal independent sets need not hold. We identify a type of substructure as the unique obstruction to the characterization. We then show that the sets linkable onto the sinks form the bases of a (possibly non-finitary) matroid precisely when the substructure does not occur.