A Polyhedral Proof of the Matrix Tree Theorem

Abstract: The classical matrix tree theorem relates the number of spanning trees of a connected graph with the product of the nonzero eigenvalues of its Laplacian matrix. The class of regular matroids generalizes that of graphical matroids, and a generalization of the matrix tree theorem holds for this wider class. We give a new, geometric proof of this fact by showing via a dissect-and-rearrange argument that two combinatorially distinct zonotopes associated to a regular matroid have the same volume. Along the way we prove that for a regular oriented matroid represented by a unimodular matrix, the lattice spanned by its cocircuits coincides with the lattice spanned by the rows of the representation matrix. Finally, by extending our setup to the weighted case we give new proofs of recent results of An et al. on weighted graphs, and extend them to cover regular matroids. No use is made of the Cauchy-Binet Theorem nor divisor theory on graphs.