The diagonal of tropical matroid varieties and cycle intersections

Abstract: We define an intersection product of tropical cycles on matroid varieties (via cutting out the diagonal) and show that it is well-behaved. In particular, this enables us to intersect cycles on moduli spaces of tropical rational marked curves $M_{0,n}$ and $M_{0,n}(\R^r, d)$. This intersection product can be extended to smooth varieties (whose local models are matroid varieties). We also study pull-backs of cycles and rational equivalence.