An algorithm for recognising the exterior square of a multiset

Abstract: The exterior square of a multiset is a natural combinatorial construction which is related to the exterior square of a vector space. We consider multisets of elements of an abelian group. Two properties are defined which a multiset may satisfy: recognisability and involution-recognisability. A polynomial-time algorithm is described which takes an input multiset and returns either (a) a multiset which is either recognisable or involution-recognisable and whose exterior square equals the input multiset, or (b) the message that no such multiset exists. The proportion of multisets which are neither recognisable nor involution-recognisable is shown to be small when the abelian group is finite but large. Some further comments are made about the motivating case of multisets of eigenvalues of matrices.