The Tutte Polynomial of Some Matroids

Abstract

The Tutte polynomial of a graph or a matroid, named after W. T. Tutte, has the important universal property that essentially any multiplicative graph or network invariant with a deletion and contraction reduction must be an evaluation of it. The deletion and contraction operations are natural reductions for many network models arising from a wide range of problems at the heart of computer science, engineering, optimization, physics, and biology. Even though the invariant is #P-hard to compute in general, there are many occasions when we face the task of computing the Tutte polynomial for some families of graphs or matroids. In this work, we compile known formulas for the Tutte polynomial of some families of graphs and matroids. Also, we give brief explanations of the techniques that were used to find the formulas. Hopefully, this will be useful for researchers in Combinatorics and elsewhere.