Decomposing Conditional Independence Ideals with Hidden Variables: A Matroid-Theoretic Approach

Abstract

We study a class of determinantal ideals arising from conditional independence (CI) statements with hidden variables. Such CI statements translate into determinantal conditions on a matrix whose entries represent the probabilities of events involving the observed random variables. Our main objective is to determine the irreducible components of the corresponding varieties and to provide a combinatorial or geometric interpretation of each. We achieve this by introducing a new approach rooted in matroid theory. In particular, we introduce a new class of matroids, which we term quasi-paving matroids, and show that the components of these determinantal varieties are precisely matroid varieties of quasi-paving matroids. Moreover, we derive generating functions that encode the number of irreducible components of these CI ideals.