221 research outputs found
Positive Alexander Duality for Pursuit and Evasion
Considered is a class of pursuit-evasion games, in which an evader tries to
avoid detection. Such games can be formulated as the search for sections to the
complement of a coverage region in a Euclidean space over a timeline. Prior
results give homological criteria for evasion in the general case that are not
necessary and sufficient. This paper provides a necessary and sufficient
positive cohomological criterion for evasion in a general case. The principal
tools are (1) a refinement of the Cech cohomology of a coverage region with a
positive cone encoding spatial orientation, (2) a refinement of the Borel-Moore
homology of the coverage gaps with a positive cone encoding time orientation,
and (3) a positive variant of Alexander Duality. Positive cohomology decomposes
as the global sections of a sheaf of local positive cohomology over the time
axis; we show how this decomposition makes positive cohomology computable as a
linear program.Comment: 19 pages, 6 figures; improvements made throughout: e.g. positive
(co)homology generalized to arbitrary degrees; Positive Alexander Duality
generalized from homological degrees 0,1; Morse and smoothness conditions
generalized; illustrations of positive homology added. minor corrections in
proofs, notation, organization, and language made throughout. variant of
Borel-Moore homology now use
- …