Maximal matroids in weak order posets

Let X be a family of subsets of a finite set E. A matroid on E is called an X-matroid if each set in X is a circuit. We develop techniques for determining when there exists a unique maximal X-matroid in the weak order poset of all X-matroids on E and formulate a conjecture which would characterise the rank function of this unique maximal matroid when it exists. The conjecture suggests a new type of matroid rank function which extends the concept of weakly saturated sequences from extremal graph theory. We verify the conjecture for various families X and show that, if true, the conjecture could have important applications in such areas as combinatorial rigidity and low rank matrix completion.(c) 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http:// creativecommons .org /licenses /by /4 .0/).