arXiv subjects

Facundo Mémoli

Publications and source records attributed to Facundo Mémoli.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2023

The Weisfeiler-Lehman Distance: Reinterpretation and Connection with GNNs

In this paper, we present a novel interpretation of the so-called Weisfeiler-Lehman (WL) distance, introduced by Chen et al. (2022), using concepts from stochastic processes. The WL distance aims at comparing graphs with node features, has the same discriminative power as the classic Weisfeiler-Lehman graph isomorphism test and has deep connections to the Gromov-Wasserstein distance. This new interpretation connects the WL distance to the literature on distances for stochastic processes, which also makes the interpretation of the distance more accessible and intuitive. We further explore the connections between the WL distance and certain Message Passing Neural Networks, and discuss the implications of the WL distance for understanding the Lipschitz property and the universal approximation results for these networks.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2023

Persistent Cup Product Structures and Related Invariants

One-dimensional persistent homology is arguably the most important and heavily used computational tool in topological data analysis. Additional information can be extracted from datasets by studying multi-dimensional persistence modules and by utilizing cohomological ideas, e.g.~the cohomological cup product. In this work, given a single parameter filtration, we investigate a certain 2-dimensional persistence module structure associated with persistent cohomology, where one parameter is the cup-length $\ell\geq0$ and the other is the filtration parameter. This new persistence structure, called the persistent cup module, is induced by the cohomological cup product and adapted to the persistence setting. Furthermore, we show that this persistence structure is stable. By fixing the cup-length parameter $\ell$, we obtain a 1-dimensional persistence module, called the persistent $\ell$-cup module, and again show it is stable in the interleaving distance sense, and study their associated generalized persistence diagrams. In addition, we consider a generalized notion of a persistent invariant, which extends both the rank invariant (also referred to as persistent Betti number), Puuska's rank invariant induced by epi-mono-preserving invariants of abelian categories, and the recently-defined persistent cup-length invariant, and we establish their stability. This generalized notion of persistent invariant also enables us to lift the Lyusternik-Schnirelmann (LS) category of topological spaces to a novel stable persistent invariant of filtrations, called the persistent LS-category invariant.

math.AT↗

arXiv2023

Curvature Sets Over Persistence Diagrams

We study a family of invariants of compact metric spaces that combines the Curvature Sets defined by Gromov in the 1980s with Vietoris-Rips Persistent Homology. For given integers $k\geq 0$ and $n\geq 1$ we consider the dimension $k$ Vietoris-Rips persistence diagrams of \emph{all} subsets of a given metric space with cardinality at most $n$. We call these invariants \emph{persistence sets} and denote them as $\mathbf{D}_{n,k}^\textrm{VR}$. We establish that (1) computing these invariants is often significantly more efficient than computing the usual Vietoris-Rips persistence diagrams, (2) these invariants have very good discriminating power and, in many cases, capture information that is imperceptible through standard Vietoris-Rips persistence diagrams, and (3) they enjoy stability properties. We precisely characterize some of them in the case of spheres and surfaces with constant curvature using a generalization of Ptolemy's inequality. We also identify a rich family of metric graphs for which $\mathbf{D}_{4,1}^\textrm{VR}$ fully recovers their homotopy type by studying split-metric decompositions. Along the way we prove some useful properties of Vietoris-Rips persistence diagrams using Mayer-Vietoris sequences. These yield a geometric algorithm for computing the Vietoris-Rips persistence diagram of a space $X$ with cardinality $2k+2$ with quadratic time complexity as opposed to the much higher cost incurred by the usual algebraic algorithms relying on matrix reduction.

math.AT↗

arXiv2023

Homology groups of the curvature sets of $\mathbb{S}^1$

For $n \geq 2$, the $n$-th curvature set of a metric space $X$ is the set consisting of all $n$-by-$n$ distance matrices of $n$ points sampled from $X$. Curvature sets can be regarded as a geometric analogue of configuration spaces. In this paper we carry out a geometric and topological study of the curvature sets of the unit circle $\mathbb{S}^1$ equipped with the geodesic metric. Via an inductive argument we compute the homology groups of all curvature sets of $\mathbb{S}^1$. We also construct an abstract simplicial complex, called the $n$-th State Complex, whose geometric realization is homeomorphic to the $n$-th Curvature Set of $\mathbb{S}^1$.

math.AT↗

arXiv2023

A generalization of the persistent Laplacian to simplicial maps

The graph Laplacian is a fundamental object in the analysis of and optimization on graphs. This operator can be extended to a simplicial complex $K$ and therefore offers a way to perform ``signal processing" on $p$-(co)chains of $K$. Recently, the concept of persistent Laplacian was proposed and studied for a pair of simplicial complexes $K\hookrightarrow L$ connected by an inclusion relation, further broadening the use of Laplace-based operators. In this paper, we expand the scope of the persistent Laplacian by generalizing it to a pair of simplicial complexes connected by a simplicial map $f: K \to L$. Such simplicial map setting arises frequently, e.g., when relating a coarsened simplicial representation with an original representation, or the case when the two simplicial complexes are spanned by different point sets i.e. cases in which it does not hold that $K\subset L$. However, the simplicial map setting is more challenging than the inclusion setting since the underlying algebraic structure is more complicated. We present a natural generalization of the persistent Laplacian to the simplicial setting. To shed insight on the structure behind it, as well as to develop an algorithm to compute it, we exploit the relationship between the persistent Laplacian and the Schur complement of a matrix. A critical step is to view the Schur complement as a functorial way of restricting a self-adjoint PSD operator to a given subspace. As a consequence, we prove that persistent Betti numbers of a simplicial map can be recovered by persistent Laplacians. We then propose an algorithm for finding the matrix representations of persistent Laplacians which in turn yields a new algorithm for computing persistent Betti numbers of a simplicial map. Finally, we study the persistent Laplacian on simplicial towers under simplicial maps and establish monotonicity results for their eigenvalues.

math.CO↗

arXiv2023

Meta-Diagrams for 2-Parameter Persistence

We first introduce the notion of meta-rank for a 2-parameter persistence module, an invariant that captures the information behind images of morphisms between 1D slices of the module. We then define the meta-diagram of a 2-parameter persistence module to be the Möbius inversion of the meta-rank, resulting in a function that takes values from signed 1-parameter persistence modules. We show that the meta-rank and meta-diagram contain information equivalent to the rank invariant and the signed barcode. This equivalence leads to computational benefits, as we introduce an algorithm for computing the meta-rank and meta-diagram of a 2-parameter module $M$ indexed by a bifiltration of $n$ simplices in $O(n^3)$ time. This implies an improvement upon the existing algorithm for computing the signed barcode, which has $O(n^4)$ runtime. This also allows us to improve the existing upper bound on the number of rectangles in the rank decomposition of $M$ from $O(n^4)$ to $O(n^3)$. In addition, we define notions of erosion distance between meta-ranks and between meta-diagrams, and show that under these distances, meta-ranks and meta-diagrams are stable with respect to the interleaving distance. Lastly, the meta-diagram can be visualized in an intuitive fashion as a persistence diagram of diagrams, which generalizes the well-understood persistence diagram in the 1-parameter setting.

math.AT↗

arXiv2023

The Four Point Condition: An Elementary Tropicalization of Ptolemy's Inequality

Ptolemy's inequality is a classic relationship between the distances among four points in Euclidean space. Another relationship between six distances is the 4-point condition, an inequality satisfied by the lengths of the six paths that join any four points of a metric (or weighted) tree. The 4-point condition also characterizes when a finite metric space can be embedded in such a tree. The curious observer might realize that these inequalities have similar forms: if one replaces addition and multiplication in Ptolemy's inequality with maximum and addition, respectively, one obtains the 4-point condition. We show that this similarity is more than a coincidence. We identify a family of Ptolemaic inequalities in CAT-spaces parametrized by a real number and show that a certain limit involving these inequalities, as the parameter goes to negative infinity, yields the 4-point condition, giving an elementary proof that the latter is the tropicalization of Ptolemy's inequality.

math.MG↗

arXiv2022

Convergence of Hierarchical Clustering and Persistent Homology Methods on Directed Networks

While there has been much interest in adapting conventional clustering procedures---and in higher dimensions, persistent homology methods---to directed networks, little is known about the convergence of such methods. In order to even formulate the problem of convergence for such methods, one needs to stipulate a reasonable model for a directed network together with a flexible sampling theory for such a model. In this paper we propose and study a particular model of directed networks, and use this model to study the convergence of certain hierarchical clustering and persistent homology methods that accept any matrix of (possibly asymmetric) pairwise relations as input and produce dendrograms and persistence barcodes as outputs. We show that as points are sampled from some probability distribution, the output of each method converges almost surely to a dendrogram/barcode depending on the structure of the distribution.

cs.CG↗

arXiv2022

The Metric Space of Networks

We study the question of reconstructing a weighted, directed network up to isomorphism from its motifs. In order to tackle this question we first relax the usual (strong) notion of graph isomorphism to obtain a relaxation that we call weak isomorphism. Then we identify a definition of distance on the space of all networks that is compatible with weak isomorphism. This global approach comes equipped with notions such as completeness, compactness, curves, and geodesics, which we explore throughout this paper. Furthermore, it admits global-to-local inference in the following sense: we prove that two networks are weakly isomorphic if and only if all their motif sets are identical, thus answering the network reconstruction question. Further exploiting the additional structure imposed by our network distance, we prove that two networks are weakly isomorphic if and only if certain essential associated structures---the skeleta of the respective networks---are strongly isomorphic.

cs.DM↗

arXiv2022

Distances and Isomorphism between Networks: Stability and Convergence of Network Invariants

We develop the theoretical foundations of a generalized Gromov-Hausdorff distance between functions on networks that has recently been applied to various subfields of topological data analysis and optimal transport. These functional representations of networks, or networks for short, specialize in the finite setting to (possibly asymmetric) adjacency matrices and derived representations such as distance or kernel matrices. Existing literature utilizing these constructions cannot, however, benefit from continuous formulations because the continuum limits of finite networks under this distance are not well-understood. For example, while there are currently numerous persistent homology methods on finite networks, it is unclear if these methods produce well-defined persistence diagrams in the infinite setting. We resolve this situation by introducing the collection of compact networks that arises by taking continuum limits of finite networks and developing sampling results showing that this collection admits well-defined persistence diagrams. Compared to metric spaces, the isomorphism class of the generalized Gromov-Hausdorff distance over networks is rather complex, and contains representatives having different cardinalities and different topologies. We provide an exact characterization of a suitable notion of isomorphism for compact networks as well as alternative, stronger characterizations under additional topological regularity assumptions. Toward data applications, we describe a unified framework for developing quantitatively stable network invariants, provide basic examples, and cast existing results on the stability of persistent homology methods in this extended framework. To illustrate our theoretical results, we introduce a model of directed circles with finite reversibility and characterize their Dowker persistence diagrams.

cs.DM↗

arXiv2022

The Gromov-Hausdorff distance between spheres

We provide general upper and lower bounds for the Gromov-Hausdorff distance $d_{\mathrm{GH}}(\mathbb{S}^m,\mathbb{S}^n)$ between spheres $\mathbb{S}^m$ and $\mathbb{S}^n$ (endowed with the round metric) for $0\leq m< n\leq \infty$. Some of these lower bounds are based on certain topological ideas related to the Borsuk-Ulam theorem. Via explicit constructions of (optimal) correspondences we prove that our lower bounds are tight in the cases of $d_{\mathrm{GH}}(\mathbb{S}^0,\mathbb{S}^n)$, $d_{\mathrm{GH}}(\mathbb{S}^m,\mathbb{S}^\infty)$, $d_{\mathrm{GH}}(\mathbb{S}^1,\mathbb{S}^2)$, $d_{\mathrm{GH}}(\mathbb{S}^1,\mathbb{S}^3)$ and $d_{\mathrm{GH}}(\mathbb{S}^2,\mathbb{S}^3)$. We also formulate a number of open questions.

math.MG↗

arXiv2022

Persistent Homotopy Groups of Metric Spaces

We study notions of persistent homotopy groups of compact metric spaces together with their stability properties in the Gromov-Hausdorff sense. We pay particular attention to the case of fundamental groups, for which we obtain a more precise description. Under fairly mild assumptions on the spaces, we proved that the classical fundamental group has an underlying tree-like structure (i.e. a dendrogram) and an associated ultra-metric.

math.AT↗

arXiv2022

Interleaving by Parts: Join Decompositions of Interleavings and Join-Assemblage of Geodesics

Metrics of interest in topological data analysis (TDA) are often explicitly or implicitly in the form of an interleaving distance $d_{\mathrm{I}}$ between poset maps (i.e. order-preserving maps), e.g. the Gromov-Hausdorff distance between metric spaces can be reformulated in this way. We propose a representation of a poset map $\mathbf{F}:\mathcal{P}\to\mathcal{Q}$ as a join (i.e. supremum) $\bigvee_{b\in B} \mathbf{F}_b$ of simpler poset maps $\mathbf{F}_b$ (for a join dense subset $B\subset \mathcal{Q}$) which in turn yields a decomposition of $d_{\mathrm{I}}$ into a product metric. The decomposition of $d_{\mathrm{I}}$ is simple, but its ramifications are manifold: (1) We can construct a geodesic path between any poset maps $\mathbf{F}$ and $\mathbf{G}$ with $d_{\mathrm{I}}(\mathbf{F},\mathbf{G})<\infty$ by assembling geodesics between all $\mathbf{F}_b$s and $\mathbf{G}_b$s via the join operation. This construction generalizes at least three constructions of geodesic paths that have appeared in the literature. (2) We can extend the Gromov-Hausdorff distance to a distance between simplicial filtrations over an arbitrary poset with a flow, preserving its universality and geodesicity. (3) We can clarify equivalence between several known metrics on multiparameter hierarchical clusterings. (4) We can illuminate the relationship between the erosion distance by Patel and the graded rank function by Betthauser, Bubenik, and Edwards, which in turn takes us to an interpretation on the representation $\bigvee_b \mathbf{F}_b$ as a generalization of persistence landscapes and graded rank functions.

math.AT↗

arXiv2022

Distance distributions and inverse problems for metric measure spaces

Applications in data science, shape analysis and object classification frequently require comparison of probability distributions defined on different ambient spaces. To accomplish this, one requires a notion of distance on a given class of metric measure spaces -- that is, compact metric spaces endowed with probability measures. Such distances are typically defined as comparisons between metric measure space invariants, such as distance distributions (also referred to as shape distributions, distance histograms or shape contexts in the literature). Generally, distances defined in terms of distance distributions are actually pseudometrics, in that they may vanish when comparing nonisomorphic spaces. The goal of this paper is to set up a formal framework for assessing the discrimininative power of distance distributions, i.e., the extend to which these pseudometrics fail to define proper metrics. We formulate several precise inverse problems in terms of these invariants and answer them in several categories of metric measure spaces, including the category of plane curves, where we give a counterexample to the Curve Histogram Conjecture of Brinkman and Olver, the categories of embedded and Riemannian manifolds, where we obtain sphere rigidity results, and the category of metric graphs, where we obtain a local injectivity result along the lines of classical work of Boutin and Kemper on point cloud configurations. The inverse problems are further contextualized by the introduction of a variant of the Gromov-Wasserstein distance on the space of metric measure spaces, which is inspired by the original Monge formulation of optimal transport.

math.MG↗

arXiv2022

Persistent Laplacians: properties, algorithms and implications

We present a thorough study of the theoretical properties and devise efficient algorithms for the \emph{persistent Laplacian}, an extension of the standard combinatorial Laplacian to the setting of pairs (or, in more generality, sequences) of simplicial complexes $K \hookrightarrow L$, which was independently introduced by Lieutier et al. and by Wang et al. In particular, in analogy with the non-persistent case, we first prove that the nullity of the $q$-th persistent Laplacian $Δ_q^{K,L}$ equals the $q$-th persistent Betti number of the inclusion $(K \hookrightarrow L)$. We then present an initial algorithm for finding a matrix representation of $Δ_q^{K,L}$, which itself helps interpret the persistent Laplacian. We exhibit a novel relationship between the persistent Laplacian and the notion of Schur complement of a matrix which has several important implications. In the graph case, it both uncovers a link with the notion of effective resistance and leads to a persistent version of the Cheeger inequality. This relationship also yields an additional, very simple algorithm for finding (a matrix representation of) the $q$-th persistent Laplacian which in turn leads to a novel and fundamentally different algorithm for computing the $q$-th persistent Betti number for a pair $(K,L)$ which can be significantly more efficient than standard algorithms. Finally, we study persistent Laplacians for simplicial filtrations and present novel stability results for their eigenvalues. Our work brings methods from spectral graph theory, circuit theory, and persistent homology together with a topological view of the combinatorial Laplacian on simplicial complexes.

math.CO↗

arXiv2022

The Persistent Topology of Optimal Transport Based Metric Thickenings

A metric thickening of a given metric space $X$ is any metric space admitting an isometric embedding of $X$. Thickenings have found use in applications of topology to data analysis, where one may approximate the shape of a dataset via the persistent homology of an increasing sequence of spaces. We introduce two new families of metric thickenings, the $p$-Vietoris-Rips and $p$-Čech metric thickenings for all $1\le p\le \infty$, which include all measures on $X$ whose $p$-diameter or $p$-radius is bounded from above, equipped with an optimal transport metric. The $p$-diameter (resp. $p$-radius) of a measure is a certain $\ell_p$ relaxation of the usual notion of diameter (resp. radius) of a subset of a metric space. These families recover the previously studied Vietoris-Rips and Čech metric thickenings when $p=\infty$. As our main contribution, we prove a stability theorem for the persistent homology of $p$-Vietoris-Rips and $p$-Čech metric thickenings, which is novel even in the case $p=\infty$. In the specific case $p=2$, we prove a Hausmann-type theorem for thickenings of manifolds, and we derive the complete list of homotopy types of the $2$-Vietoris-Rips thickenings of the $n$-sphere as the scale increases.

math.MG↗

arXiv2022

Computing Generalized Rank Invariant for 2-Parameter Persistence Modules via Zigzag Persistence and its Applications

The notion of generalized rank invariant in the context of multiparameter persistence has become an important ingredient for defining interesting homological structures such as generalized persistence diagrams. Naturally, computing these rank invariants efficiently is a prelude to computing any of these derived structures efficiently. We show that the generalized rank over a finite interval $I$ of a $\mathbb{Z}^2$-indexed persistence module $M$ is equal to the generalized rank of the zigzag module that is induced on a certain path in $I$ tracing mostly its boundary. Hence, we can compute the generalized rank over $I$ by computing the barcode of the zigzag module obtained by restricting the bifiltration inducing $M$ to that path. If the bifiltration and $I$ have at most $t$ simplices and points respectively, this computation takes $O(t^ω)$ time where $ω\in[2,2.373)$ is the exponent of matrix multiplication. Among others, we apply this result to obtain an improved algorithm for the following problem. Given a bifiltration inducing a module $M$, determine whether $M$ is interval decomposable and, if so, compute all intervals supporting its summands.

math.AT↗

arXiv2022

Persistent Cup-Length

Cohomological ideas have recently been injected into persistent homology and have for example been used for accelerating the calculation of persistence diagrams by the software Ripser. The cup product operation which is available at cohomology level gives rise to a graded ring structure that extends the usual vector space structure and is therefore able to extract and encode additional rich information. The maximum number of cocycles having non-zero cup product yields an invariant, the cup-length, which is useful for discriminating spaces. In this paper, we lift the cup-length into the persistent cup-length function for the purpose of capturing ring-theoretic information about the evolution of the cohomology (ring) structure across a filtration. We show that the persistent cup-length function can be computed from a family of representative cocycles and devise a polynomial time algorithm for its computation. We furthermore show that this invariant is stable under suitable interleaving-type distances.

math.AT↗