Quasi-graphic matroids

Abstract

Frame matroids and lifted-graphic matroids are two interesting generalizations of graphic matroids. Here we introduce a new generalization, {\em quasi-graphic matroids}, that unifies these two existing classes. Unlike frame matroids and lifted-graphic matroids, it is easy to certify that a matroid is quasi-graphic. The main result of the paper is that every $3$-connected representable quasi-graphic matroid is either a lifted-graphic matroid or a frame matroid.