On the asymptotic normality of persistent Betti numbers

Abstract

Persistent Betti numbers are a major tool in persistent homology, a subfield of topological data analysis. Many tools in persistent homology rely on the properties of persistent Betti numbers considered as a two-dimensional stochastic process $(r,s) \mapsto n^{-1/2} (\beta^{r,s}_q ( \mathcal{K}(n^{1/d} S_n))-\mathbb{E}[\beta^{r,s}_q ( \mathcal{K}( n^{1/d} S_n))])$. So far, pointwise limit theorems have been established in different set-ups. In particular, the pointwise asymptotic normality of (persistent) Betti numbers has been established for stationary Poisson processes and binomial processes with constant intensity function in the so-called critical (or thermodynamic) regime, see Yogeshwaran et al. [2017] and Hiraoka et al. [2018]. In this contribution, we derive a strong stabilizing property (in the spirit of Penrose and Yukich [2001] of persistent Betti numbers and generalize the existing results on the asymptotic normality to the multivariate case and to a broader class of underlying Poisson and binomial processes. Most importantly, we show that the multivariate asymptotic normality holds for all pairs $(r,s)$, $0\le r\le s<\infty$, and that it is not affected by percolation effects in the underlying random geometric graph