Grassmann--Pl\"ucker functions for orthogonal matroids

Abstract

We present a new cryptomorphic definition of orthogonal matroids with coefficients using Grassmann--Pl\"ucker functions. The equivalence is motivated by Cayley's identities expressing principal and almost-principal minors of a skew-symmetric matrix in terms of its Pfaffians. As a corollary of the new cryptomorphism, we deduce that each component of the orthogonal Grassmannian is parameterized by certain part of the Pl\"ucker coordinates.