arXiv subjects

Salman Parsa

Publications and source records attributed to Salman Parsa.

17 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2024

Tracking the Persistence of Harmonic Chains: Barcode and Stability

The persistence barcode is a topological descriptor of data that plays a fundamental role in topological data analysis. Given a filtration of data, the persistence barcode tracks the evolution of its homology groups. In this paper, we introduce a new type of barcode, called the harmonic chain barcode, which tracks the evolution of harmonic chains. In addition, we show that the harmonic chain barcode is stable. Given a filtration of a simplicial complex of size $m$, we present an algorithm to compute its harmonic chain barcode in $O(m^3)$ time. Consequently, the harmonic chain barcode can enrich the family of topological descriptors in applications where a persistence barcode is applicable, such as feature vectorization and machine learning.

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arXiv2024

Harmonic Chain Barcode and Stability

The persistence barcode is a topological descriptor of data that plays a fundamental role in topological data analysis. Given a filtration of the space of data, a persistence barcode tracks the evolution of its homological features. In this paper, we introduce a novel type of barcode, referred to as the canonical barcode of harmonic chains, or harmonic chain barcode for short, which tracks the evolution of harmonic chains. As our main result, we show that the harmonic chain barcode is stable and it captures both geometric and topological information of data. Moreover, given a filtration of a simplicial complex of size $n$ with $m$ time steps, we can compute its harmonic chain barcode in $O(m^2n^ω + mn^3)$ time, where $n^ω$ is the matrix multiplication time. Consequently, a harmonic chain barcode can be utilized in applications in which a persistence barcode is applicable, such as feature vectorization and machine learning. Our work provides strong evidence in a growing list of literature that geometric (not just topological) information can be recovered from a persistence filtration.

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arXiv2024

On the Parameterized Complexity of Motion Planning for Rectangular Robots

We study computationally-hard fundamental motion planning problems where the goal is to translate $k$ axis-aligned rectangular robots from their initial positions to their final positions without collision, and with the minimum number of translation moves. Our aim is to understand the interplay between the number of robots and the geometric complexity of the input instance measured by the input size, which is the number of bits needed to encode the coordinates of the rectangles' vertices. We focus on axis-aligned translations, and more generally, translations restricted to a given set of directions, and we study the two settings where the robots move in the free plane, and where they are confined to a bounding box. We obtain fixed-parameter tractable (FPT) algorithms parameterized by $k$ for all the settings under consideration. In the case where the robots move serially (i.e., one in each time step) and axis-aligned, we prove a structural result stating that every problem instance admits an optimal solution in which the moves are along a grid, whose size is a function of $k$, that can be defined based on the input instance. This structural result implies that the problem is fixed-parameter tractable parameterized by $k$. We also consider the case in which the robots move in parallel (i.e., multiple robots can move during the same time step), and which falls under the category of Coordinated Motion Planning problems. Finally, we show that, when the robots move in the free plane, the FPT results for the serial motion case carry over to the case where the translations are restricted to any given set of directions.

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arXiv2023

Labeled Interleaving Distance for Reeb Graphs

Merge trees, contour trees, and Reeb graphs are graph-based topological descriptors that capture topological changes of (sub)level sets of scalar fields. Comparing scalar fields using their topological descriptors has many applications in topological data analysis and visualization of scientific data. Recently, Munch and Stefanou introduced a labeled interleaving distance for comparing two labeled merge trees, which enjoys a number of theoretical and algorithmic properties. In particular, the labeled interleaving distance between merge trees can be computed in polynomial time. In this work, we define the labeled interleaving distance for labeled Reeb graphs. We then prove that the (ordinary) interleaving distance between Reeb graphs equals the minimum of the labeled interleaving distance over all labelings. We also provide an efficient algorithm for computing the labeled interleaving distance between two labeled contour trees (which are special types of Reeb graphs that arise from simply-connected domains). In the case of merge trees, the notion of the labeled interleaving distance was used by Gasparovic et al. to prove that the (ordinary) interleaving distance on the set of (unlabeled) merge trees is intrinsic. As our final contribution, we present counterexamples showing that, on the contrary, the (ordinary) interleaving distance on (unlabeled) Reeb graphs (and contour trees) is not intrinsic. It turns out that, under mild conditions on the labelings, the labeled interleaving distance is a metric on isomorphism classes of Reeb graphs, analogous to the ordinary interleaving distance. This provides new metrics on large classes of Reeb graphs.

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arXiv2023

Revisiting Graph Persistence for Updates and Efficiency

It is well known that ordinary persistence on graphs can be computed more efficiently than the general persistence. Recently, it has been shown that zigzag persistence on graphs also exhibits similar behavior. Motivated by these results, we revisit graph persistence and propose efficient algorithms especially for local updates on filtrations, similar to what is done in ordinary persistence for computing the vineyard. We show that, for a filtration of length $m$, (i) switches (transpositions) in ordinary graph persistence can be done in $O(\log m)$ time; (ii) zigzag persistence on graphs can be computed in $O(m\log m)$ time, which improves a recent $O(m\log^4n)$ time algorithm assuming $n$, the size of the union of all graphs in the filtration, satisfies $n\inΩ({m^\varepsilon})$ for any fixed $0<\varepsilon<1$; (iii) open-closed, closed-open, and closed-closed bars in dimension $0$ for graph zigzag persistence can be updated in $O(\log m)$ time, whereas the open-open bars in dimension $0$ and closed-closed bars in dimension $1$ can be done in $O(\sqrt{m}\,\log m)$ time.

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arXiv2022

Instability of the Smith Index Under Joins and Applications to Embeddability

We say a $d$-dimensional simplicial complex embeds into double dimension if it embeds into the Euclidean space of dimension $2d$. For instance, a graph is planar iff it embeds into double dimension. We study the conditions under which the join of two simplicial complexes embeds into double dimension. Quite unexpectedly, we show that there exist complexes which do not embed into double dimension, however their join embeds into the respective double dimension. We further derive conditions, in terms of the van Kampen obstructions of the two complexes, under which the join will not be embeddable into the double dimension. Our main tool in this study is the definition of the van Kampen obstruction as a Smith class. We determine the Smith classes of the join of two $\mathbb{Z}_p$-complexes in terms of the Smith classes of the factors. We show that in general the Smith index is not stable under joins. This allows us to prove our embeddability results.

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arXiv2022

On Complexity of Computing Bottleneck and Lexicographic Optimal Cycles in a Homology Class

Homology features of spaces which appear in applications, for instance 3D meshes, are among the most important topological properties of these objects. Given a non-trivial cycle in a homology class, we consider the problem of computing a representative in that homology class which is optimal. We study two measures of optimality, namely, the lexicographic order of cycles (the lex-optimal cycle) and the bottleneck norm (a bottleneck-optimal cycle). We give a simple algorithm for computing the lex-optimal cycle for a 1-homology lass in a closed orientable surface. In contrast to this, our main result is that, in the case of 3-Manifolds of size $n^2$ in the Euclidean 3-space, the problem of finding a bottleneck optimal cycle cannot be solved more efficiently than solving a system of linear equations with an $n \times n$ sparse matrix. From this reduction, we deduce several hardness results. Most notably, we show that for 3-manifolds given as a subset of the 3-space of size $n^2$, persistent homology computations are at least as hard as rank computation (for sparse matrices) while ordinary homology computations can be done in $O(n^2 \log n)$ time. This is the first such distinction between these two computations. Moreover, it follows that the same disparity exists between the height persistent homology computation and general sub-level set persistent homology computation for simplicial complexes in the 3-space.

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arXiv2022

Minimum Height Drawings of Ordered Trees in Polynomial Time: Homotopy Height of Tree Duals

We consider drawings of graphs in the plane in which vertices are assigned distinct points in the plane and edges are drawn as simple curves connecting the vertices and such that the edges intersect only at their common endpoints. There is an intuitive quality measure for drawings of a graph that measures the height of a drawing $ϕ: G \rightarrow \mathbb{R}^2$ as follows. For a vertical line $\ell$ in $\mathbb{R}^2$, let the height of $\ell$ be the cardinality of the set $\ell \cap ϕ(G)$. The height of a drawing of $G$ is the maximum height over all vertical lines. In this paper, instead of abstract graphs, we fix a drawing and consider plane graphs. In other words, we are looking for a homeomorphism of the plane that minimizes the height of the resulting drawing. This problem is equivalent to the homotopy height problem in the plane, and the homotopic Fréchet distance problem. These problems were recently shown to lie in NP, but no polynomial-time algorithm or NP-hardness proof has been found since their formulation in 2009. We present the first polynomial-time algorithm for drawing trees with optimal height. This corresponds to a polynomial-time algorithm for the homotopy height where the triangulation has only one vertex (that is, a set of loops incident to a single vertex), so that its dual is a tree.

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arXiv2020

Algorithms for Contractibility of Compressed Curves on 3-Manifold Boundaries

In this paper we prove that the problem of deciding contractibility of an arbitrary closed curve on the boundary of a 3-manifold is in NP. We emphasize that the manifold and the curve are both inputs to the problem. Moreover, our algorithm also works if the curve is given as a compressed word. Previously, such an algorithm was known for simple (non-compressed) curves, and, in very limited cases, for curves with self-intersections. Furthermore, our algorithm is fixed-parameter tractable in the complexity of the input 3-manifold. As part of our proof, we obtain new polynomial-time algorithms for compressed curves on surfaces, which we believe are of independent interest. We provide a polynomial-time algorithm which, given an orientable surface and a compressed loop on the surface, computes a canonical form for the loop as a compressed word. In particular, contractibility of compressed curves on surfaces can be decided in polynomial time; prior published work considered only constant genus surfaces. More generally, we solve the following normal subgroup membership problem in polynomial time: given an arbitrary orientable surface, a compressed closed curve $γ$, and a collection of disjoint normal curves $Δ$, there is a polynomial-time algorithm to decide if $γ$ lies in the normal subgroup generated by components of $Δ$ in the fundamental group of the surface after attaching the curves to a basepoint.

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arXiv2020

Hardness of Segment Cover, Contiguous SAT and Visibility with Uncertain Obstacles

We define the problem segment cover as follows. We are given a set of pairs of sub-intervals of the unit interval. The problem asks if there is a choice of a single interval from each pair such that the union of the chosen intervals covers the entire unit interval. This problem arises naturally while attempting to compute visibility between a point and a line segment in the plane in the presence of uncertain obstacles. Segment cover is equivalent to a restricted version of SAT which we call contiguous SAT. Consider a SAT with the following restrictions. An input formula is in CNF form and an ordering of the clauses is given in which clauses containing any fixed literal appear contiguously. We call this restricted problem contiguous SAT. Our main result is that the problems segment cover and contiguous SAT are NP-hard. We also discuss hardness of approximation for these problems.

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arXiv2020

How to Morph Graphs on the Torus

We present the first algorithm to morph graphs on the torus. Given two isotopic essentially 3-connected embeddings of the same graph on the Euclidean flat torus, where the edges in both drawings are geodesics, our algorithm computes a continuous deformation from one drawing to the other, such that all edges are geodesics at all times. Previously even the existence of such a morph was not known. Our algorithm runs in $O(n^{1+ω/2})$ time, where $ω$ is the matrix multiplication exponent, and the computed morph consists of $O(n)$ parallel linear morphing steps. Existing techniques for morphing planar straight-line graphs do not immediately generalize to graphs on the torus; in particular, Cairns' original 1944 proof and its more recent improvements rely on the fact that every planar graph contains a vertex of degree at most 5. Our proof relies on a subtle geometric analysis of 6-regular triangulations of the torus. We also make heavy use of a natural extension of Tutte's spring embedding theorem to torus graphs.

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arXiv2020

On the embeddability of $[3]*K$

We relate the embeddability of the simplicial complex $[3]*K$ into $\mathbb{R}^{n+2}$ to that of $K$ into $\mathbb{R}^n$. In brief, the embeddability of $K$ into $\mathbb{R}^n$, in the metastable range $2n\geq 3(d+1)$, is equivalent to the embeddability of $[3]*K$ into $\mathbb{R}^{n+2}$. We show moreover than the van Kampen obstruction of $K$ vanishes if and only if the van Kampen obstruction of $[3]*K$ vanishes. It follows that for $d=2$, embeddabilty of $[3]*K$ is equivalent with the vanishing of the van Kampen obstruction for $K$, but not with the embeddability of $K$.

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arXiv2020

On links of vertices in simplicial $d$-complexes embeddable in the euclidean $2d$-space

We consider $d$-dimensional simplicial complexes which can be PL embedded in the $2d$-dimensional euclidean space. In short, we show that in any such complex, for any three vertices, the intersection of the link-complexes of the vertices is linklessly embeddable in the $(2d-1)$-dimensional euclidean space. These considerations lead us to a new upper bound on the total number of $d$-simplices in an embeddable complex in $2d$-space with $n$ vertices, improving known upper bounds, for all $d \geq 2$. Moreover, the bound is also true for the size of $d$-complexes linklessly embeddable in the $(2d+1)$-dimensional space.

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arXiv2020

On the Smith classes, the van Kampen obstruction and embeddability of $[3]*K$

In this survey-research paper, we first introduce the theory of Smith classes of complexes with fixed-point free, periodic maps on them. These classes, when defined for the deleted product of a simplicial complex $K$, are the same as the embedding classes of $K$. Embedding classes, in turn, are generalizations of the van Kampen obstruction class for embeddability of a $d$-dimensional complex $K$ into the Euclidean $2d$-space. All of these concepts will be introduced in simple terms. Second, we use the theory introduced in the first part to relate the embedding classes (or the special Smith classes) of the the complex $[3]*K$ with the embedding classes of $K$. Here $[3]*K$ is the join of $K$ with a set of three points. Specifically, we prove that if the $m$-th embedding class of $K$ is non-zero, then the $(m+2)$-nd embedding class of $[3]*K$ is non-zero. We also prove some of the consequences of this theorem for the embeddability of $[3]*K$.

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arXiv2020

Deciding contractibility of a non-simple curve on the boundary of a 3-manifold: A computational Loop Theorem

We present an algorithm for the following problem. Given a triangulated 3-manifold M and a (possibly non-simple) closed curve on the boundary of M, decide whether this curve is contractible in M. Our algorithm runs in space polynomial in the size of the input, and (thus) in exponential time. This is the first algorithm that is specifically designed for this problem; it considerably improves upon the existing bounds implicit in the literature for the more general problem of contractibility of closed curves in a 3-manifold. The proof of the correctness of the algorithm relies on methods of 3-manifold topology and in particular on those used in the proof of the Loop Theorem. As a byproduct, we obtain an algorithmic version of the Loop Theorem that runs in polynomial space, and (thus) in exponential time.

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arXiv2016

Small Model $2$-Complexes in $4$-space and Applications

We consider computational complexity of problems related to the fundamental group and the first homology group of (embeddable) $2$-complexes. We show, as an extension of an earlier work, that computing first homology of $2$-complexes is equivalent in computational complexity to matrix diagonalization. That is, the usual procedures for computing homology cannot be improved other than by matrix methods. This is true even if the complex is in the euclidean $4$-space. For this purpose, we use $2$-complexes built in a standard way from group presentations, called model $2$-complexes. Model complexes have fundamental group isomorphic with the group defined by the presentation. We show that there are model complexes of size in the order of the bit-complexity of the presentation that can be realized linearly in $4$-space. We further derive some applications of this result regarding embeddability problems in the euclidean $4$-space.

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arXiv2015

Algorithms for Dynamic Reeb Graphs

We present an algorithm for updating the Reeb graph under fully dynamic changes of the function values. The basic event is the interchange of two consecutive vertex values. The algorithm updates the Reeb graph in $O(l g{n})$ worst-case deterministic time for each such interchange, where $l$ is an upper bound on the size of the star of the involved vertices, and g(n) is a worst-case bound for the dynamic graph connectivity problem. Moreover, we argue that $O(l)$ is a lower bound for this operation in general.

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