Computing Persistent Homology within Coq/SSReflect

Persistent homology is one of the most active branches of Computational Algebraic Topology with applications in several contexts such as optical character recognition or analysis of point cloud data. In this paper, we report on the formal development of certified programs to compute persistent Betti numbers, an instrumental tool of persistent homology, using the Coq proof assistant together with the SSReflect extension. To this aim it has been necessary to formalize the underlying mathematical theory of these algorithms. This is another example showing that interactive theorem provers have reached a point where they are mature enough to tackle the formalization of nontrivial mathematical theories

Applications of Computational Homology

Homology is a field of topology that classifies objects based on the number of n- dimensional holes (cuts, tunnels, voids, etc.) they possess. The number of its real life ap- plications is quickly growing, which requires development of modern computational meth- ods. In my thesis, I will present methods of calculation, algorithms, and implementations of simplicial homology, alpha shapes, and persistent homology. The Alpha Shapes method represents a point cloud as the union of balls centered at each point, and based on these balls, a complex can be built and homology computed. If the balls are allowed to grow, one can compute the persistent homology, which gives a better understanding of the shape of the object represented by the point cloud by eliminating noise. These methods are particularly well suited for studying biological molecules. I will test the hypothesis that persistent homology can describe some important features of a protein\u27s shape

Algebraic Topology

The chapter provides an introduction to the basic concepts of Algebraic Topology with an emphasis on motivation from applications in the physical sciences. It finishes with a brief review of computational work in algebraic topology, including persistent homology.Comment: This manuscript will be published as Chapter 5 in Wiley's textbook \emph{Mathematical Tools for Physicists}, 2nd edition, edited by Michael Grinfeld from the University of Strathclyd