Variable sets over an algebra of lifetimes: a contribution of lattice theory to the study of computational topology

A topos theoretic generalisation of the category of sets allows for modelling spaces which vary according to time intervals. Persistent homology, or more generally, persistence is a central tool in topological data analysis, which examines the structure of data through topology. The basic techniques have been extended in several different directions, permuting the encoding of topological features by so called barcodes or equivalently persistence diagrams. The set of points of all such diagrams determines a complete Heyting algebra that can explain aspects of the relations between persistent bars through the algebraic properties of its underlying lattice structure. In this paper, we investigate the topos of sheaves over such algebra, as well as discuss its construction and potential for a generalised simplicial homology over it. In particular we are interested in establishing a topos theoretic unifying theory for the various flavours of persistent homology that have emerged so far, providing a global perspective over the algebraic foundations of applied and computational topology.Comment: 20 pages, 12 figures, AAA88 Conference proceedings at Demonstratio Mathematica. The new version has restructured arguments, clearer intuition is provided, and several typos correcte

Zigzag Persistent Homology in Matrix Multiplication Time

We present a new algorithm for computing zigzag persistent homology, an algebraic structure which encodes changes to homology groups of a simplicial complex over a sequence of simplex additions and deletions. Provided that there is an algorithm that multiplies two n × n matrices in M(n) time, our algorithm runs in O(M(n) + n 2 log 2 n) time for a sequence of n additions and deletions. In particular, the running time is O(n 2.376), by result of Coppersmith and Winograd. The fastest previously known algorithm for this problem takes O(n 3) time in the worst case

The principal bundles over an inverse semigroup

This paper is a contribution to the development of the theory of representations of inverse semigroups in toposes. It continues the work initiated by Funk and Hofstra. For the topos of sets, we show that torsion-free functors on Loganathan's category $L(S)$ of an inverse semigroup $S$ are equivalent to a special class of non-strict representations of $S$, which we call connected. We show that the latter representations form a proper coreflective subcategory of the category of all non-strict representations of $S$. We describe the correspondence between directed and pullback preserving functors on $L(S)$ and transitive and effective representations of $S$, as well as between filtered such functors and universal representations introduced by Lawson, Margolis and Steinberg. We propose a definition of a universal representation of an inverse semigroup in the topos of sheaves ${\mathsf{Sh}}(X)$ on a topological space $X$ as well as outline an approach on how to define such a representation in an arbitrary topos. We prove that the category of filtered functors from $L(S)$ to the topos ${\mathsf{Sh}}(X)$ is equivalent to the category of universal representations of $S$ in ${\mathsf{Sh}}(X)$