Chordal matroids arising from generalized parallel connections

Abstract

A graph is chordal if every cycle of length at least four has a chord. In 1961, Dirac characterized chordal graphs as those graphs that can be built from complete graphs by repeated clique-sums. Generalizing this, we consider the class of simple $GF(q)$-representable matroids that can be built from projective geometries over $GF(q)$ by repeated generalized parallel connections across projective geometries. We show that this class of matroids is closed under induced minors. We characterize the class by its forbidden induced minors; the case when $q=2$ is distinctive.