On Matroids of Branch-Width Three

For all positive integers k, the class Bk of matroids of branch-width at most k is minor-closed. When k is 1 or 2, the class Bk is, respectively, the class of direct sums of loops and coloops, and the class of direct sums of series–parallel networks. B3 is a much richer class as it contains infinite antichains of matroids and is thus not well-quasi-ordered under the minor order. In this paper, it is shown that, like B1 and B2, the class B3 can be characterized by a finite list of excluded minors.