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Arrangements in Boston: A Conference in Hyperplane Arrangements
June 12-15, 1999
Northeastern University
Boston, MA, USA

Organizers
Dan Cohen, David Massey, Alex Suciu

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How to calculate characteristic polynomials if you must
by
Joseph P. Kung
University of North Texas

Characteristic polynomials (CP) are difficult to calculate. There are several identities which help. We shall discuss two lesser known identities. One is due to Henry Crapo. This expresses the CP of a submatroid as a sum of CP's of contractions of the matroid. The other is an explicit formula for the ``correction term'' in Stanley's modular factorization identity when the flat is not modular. We shall give several applications. One of them is a way to construct many arrangements whose CP's factor completely over the integers but are not free.

Date received: April 27, 1999

Copyright © 1999 by the author(s). The author(s) of this document and the organizers of the conference have granted their consent to include this abstract in Atlas Conferences Inc. Document # cadi-03.