On zeros of the characteristic polynomial of matroids of bounded tree-width

Abstract

We develop some basic tools to work with representable matroids of bounded tree-width and use them to prove that, for any prime power $q$ and constant $k$, the characteristic polynomial of any loopless, $GF(q)$-representable matroid with tree-width $k$ has no real zero greater than $q^{k-1}$.