In the mathematical theory of matroids, the rank of a matroid is the maximum size of an independent set in the matroid. The rank of a subset S of elements of the matroid is, similarly, the maximum size of an independent subset of S, and the rank function of the matroid maps sets of elements to their ranks. The rank function is one of the fundamental concepts of matroid theory via which matroids may be axiomatized. The rank functions of matroids form an important subclass of the submodular set functions, and the rank functions of the matroids defined from certain other types of mathematical object such as undirected graphs, matrices, and field extensions are important within the study of those objects.
Properties and axiomatization
The rank function of a matroid obeys the following properties.
For any set and element,. From the first of these two inequalities it follows more generally that, if, then. That is, the rank is a monotonic function.
These properties may be used as axioms to characterize the rank function of matroids: every integer-valued submodular function on the subsets of a finite set that obeys the inequalities for all and is the rank function of a matroid.
Other matroid properties from rank
The rank function may be used to determine the other important properties of a matroid:
A set is independent if and only if its rank equals its cardinality, and dependent if and only if it has greater cardinality than rank.
A nonempty set is a circuit if its cardinality equals one plus its rank and every subset formed by removing one element from the set has equal rank.
A set is a basis if its rank equals both its cardinality and the rank of the matroid.
A set is closed if it is maximal for its rank, in the sense that there does not exist another element that can be added to it while maintaining the same rank.
The difference is called the nullity of the subset. It is the minimum number of elements that must be removed from to obtain an independent set.
The corank of a subset can refer to at least two different quantities: some authors use it to refer to the rank of in the dual matroid,, while other authors use corank to refer to the difference.
