Matroids arising from electrical networks

Abstract

This paper introduces Dirichlet matroids, a generalization of graphic matroids arising from electrical networks. We present four main theorems. First, we exhibit a matroid quotient involving geometric duals of networks embedded in surfaces with boundary. Second, we characterize the Bergman fans of Dirichlet matroids as subfans of graphic Bergman fans. Third, we prove an interlacing result on the real zeros and poles of the trace of the response matrix. And fourth, we bound the coefficients of the precoloring polynomial of a network by the coefficients of the associated chromatic polynomial.