Wiki
Wiki

Research notes on every problem, and a library of the papers behind them. Built from the open erdos repository.

Updated


Source. The augmentation step in the proof of Theorem 5, printed p. 1326 (published PDF), where it is cited to Mirsky–Perfect.

Statement. Let (Cℓ)ℓ∈L(C_\ell)_{\ell\in L} be a finite indexed family that has a full transversal. Every partial-transversal range PP is contained in the range of some full transversal.

Proof. Partial-transversal ranges are the independent sets of the transversal matroid, by the finite transversal-matroid theorem. Because a full transversal exists, this matroid has rank ∣L∣|L|. By finite basis extension, PP is contained in some base QQ.

The base has ∣Q∣=∣L∣|Q|=|L| and is itself a partial-transversal range. Any witness assigns its ∣L∣|L| distinct elements injectively to a subset of the ∣L∣|L| family indices, so it uses every index and is a full transversal. Thus P⊆QP\subseteq Q has the required form. The witnessing assignment for QQ may rematch elements of PP; the asserted set inclusion is preserved. For an empty family, P=Q=∅P=Q=\varnothing. □\square

The finite basis-extension input is proved in elementary finite matroid facts.