Pattern Recognition on Oriented Matroids: Decompositions of Topes, and Orthogonality Relations

Abstract

If V(R) is the vertex set of a symmetric cycle R in the tope graph of a simple oriented matroid M, then for any tope T of M there exists a unique inclusion-minimal subset Q(T,R) of V(R) such that T is the sum of the topes of Q(T,R). If for decompositions Q(T',R') and Q(T",R") with respect to symmetric cycles R' and R" in the tope graphs of two simple oriented matroids, whose ground sets have the cardinalities of opposite parity, we have |Q(T',R')|>3 and |Q(T",R")|>3, then these decompositions satisfy a certain orthogonality relation.