Decomposition width - a new width parameter for matroids

Abstract: We introduce a new width parameter for matroids called decomposition width and prove that every matroid property expressible in the monadic second order logic can be computed in linear time for matroids with bounded decomposition width if their decomposition is given. Since decompositions of small width for our new notion can be computed in polynomial time for matroids of bounded branch-width represented over finite fields, our results include recent algorithmic results of Hlineny [J. Combin. Theory Ser. B 96 (2006), 325-351] in this area and extend his results to matroids not necessarily representable over finite fields.