9,487 research outputs found
Polynomial-Sized Topological Approximations Using The Permutahedron
Classical methods to model topological properties of point clouds, such as
the Vietoris-Rips complex, suffer from the combinatorial explosion of complex
sizes. We propose a novel technique to approximate a multi-scale filtration of
the Rips complex with improved bounds for size: precisely, for points in
, we obtain a -approximation with at most simplices of dimension or lower. In conjunction with dimension
reduction techniques, our approach yields a -approximation of size for Rips filtrations on arbitrary metric
spaces. This result stems from high-dimensional lattice geometry and exploits
properties of the permutahedral lattice, a well-studied structure in discrete
geometry.
Building on the same geometric concept, we also present a lower bound result
on the size of an approximate filtration: we construct a point set for which
every -approximation of the \v{C}ech filtration has to contain
features, provided that for .Comment: 24 pages, 1 figur
Geometric origin of mechanical properties of granular materials
Some remarkable generic properties, related to isostaticity and potential
energy minimization, of equilibrium configurations of assemblies of rigid,
frictionless grains are studied. Isostaticity -the uniqueness of the forces,
once the list of contacts is known- is established in a quite general context,
and the important distinction between isostatic problems under given external
loads and isostatic (rigid) structures is presented. Complete rigidity is only
guaranteed, on stability grounds, in the case of spherical cohesionless grains.
Otherwise, the network of contacts might deform elastically in response to load
increments, even though grains are rigid. This sets an uuper bound on the
contact coordination number. The approximation of small displacements (ASD)
allows to draw analogies with other model systems studied in statistical
mechanics, such as minimum paths on a lattice. It also entails the uniqueness
of the equilibrium state (the list of contacts itself is geometrically
determined) for cohesionless grains, and thus the absence of plastic
dissipation. Plasticity and hysteresis are due to the lack of such uniqueness
and may stem, apart from intergranular friction, from small, but finite,
rearrangements, in which the system jumps between two distinct potential energy
minima, or from bounded tensile contact forces. The response to load increments
is discussed. On the basis of past numerical studies, we argue that, if the ASD
is valid, the macroscopic displacement field is the solution to an elliptic
boundary value problem (akin to the Stokes problem).Comment: RevTex, 40 pages, 26 figures. Close to published paper. Misprints and
minor errors correcte
Random Convex Hulls and Extreme Value Statistics
In this paper we study the statistical properties of convex hulls of
random points in a plane chosen according to a given distribution. The points
may be chosen independently or they may be correlated. After a non-exhaustive
survey of the somewhat sporadic literature and diverse methods used in the
random convex hull problem, we present a unifying approach, based on the notion
of support function of a closed curve and the associated Cauchy's formulae,
that allows us to compute exactly the mean perimeter and the mean area enclosed
by the convex polygon both in case of independent as well as correlated points.
Our method demonstrates a beautiful link between the random convex hull problem
and the subject of extreme value statistics. As an example of correlated
points, we study here in detail the case when the points represent the vertices
of independent random walks. In the continuum time limit this reduces to
independent planar Brownian trajectories for which we compute exactly, for
all , the mean perimeter and the mean area of their global convex hull. Our
results have relevant applications in ecology in estimating the home range of a
herd of animals. Some of these results were announced recently in a short
communication [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 103}, 140602 (2009)].Comment: 61 pages (pedagogical review); invited contribution to the special
issue of J. Stat. Phys. celebrating the 50 years of Yeshiba/Rutgers meeting
Improved Orientation Sampling for Indexing Diffraction Patterns of Polycrystalline Materials
Orientation mapping is a widely used technique for revealing the
microstructure of a polycrystalline sample. The crystalline orientation at each
point in the sample is determined by analysis of the diffraction pattern, a
process known as pattern indexing. A recent development in pattern indexing is
the use of a brute-force approach, whereby diffraction patterns are simulated
for a large number of crystalline orientations, and compared against the
experimentally observed diffraction pattern in order to determine the most
likely orientation. Whilst this method can robust identify orientations in the
presence of noise, it has very high computational requirements. In this
article, the computational burden is reduced by developing a method for
nearly-optimal sampling of orientations. By using the quaternion representation
of orientations, it is shown that the optimal sampling problem is equivalent to
that of optimally distributing points on a four-dimensional sphere. In doing
so, the number of orientation samples needed to achieve a indexing desired
accuracy is significantly reduced. Orientation sets at a range of sizes are
generated in this way for all Laue groups, and are made available online for
easy use.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figure
Embedding Stacked Polytopes on a Polynomial-Size Grid
A stacking operation adds a -simplex on top of a facet of a simplicial
-polytope while maintaining the convexity of the polytope. A stacked
-polytope is a polytope that is obtained from a -simplex and a series of
stacking operations. We show that for a fixed every stacked -polytope
with vertices can be realized with nonnegative integer coordinates. The
coordinates are bounded by , except for one axis, where the
coordinates are bounded by . The described realization can be
computed with an easy algorithm.
The realization of the polytopes is obtained with a lifting technique which
produces an embedding on a large grid. We establish a rounding scheme that
places the vertices on a sparser grid, while maintaining the convexity of the
embedding.Comment: 22 pages, 10 Figure
- …