skip to main content
US FlagAn official website of the United States government
dot gov icon
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
https lock icon
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( lock ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.


Title: Fast Computation of Zigzag Persistence
Zigzag persistence is a powerful extension of the standard persistence which allows deletions of simplices besides insertions. However, computing zigzag persistence usually takes considerably more time than the standard persistence. We propose an algorithm called FastZigzag which narrows this efficiency gap. Our main result is that an input simplex-wise zigzag filtration can be converted to a cell-wise non-zigzag filtration of a ∆-complex with the same length, where the cells are copies of the input simplices. This conversion step in FastZigzag incurs very little cost. Furthermore, the barcode of the original filtration can be easily read from the barcode of the new cell-wise filtration because the conversion embodies a series of diamond switches known in topological data analysis. This seemingly simple observation opens up the vast possibilities for improving the computation of zigzag persistence because any efficient algorithm/software for standard persistence can now be applied to computing zigzag persistence. Our experiment shows that this indeed achieves substantial performance gain over the existing state-of-the-art softwares.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
2049010
PAR ID:
10440101
Author(s) / Creator(s):
;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
LIPIcs, Volume 244, ESA 2022, Complete Volume
Volume:
244
Page Range / eLocation ID:
43:1-43:15
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. Xavier Goaoc; Michael Kerber (Ed.)
    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 𝐙²-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 ∈ [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. 
    more » « less
  2. Buchin, Kevin and (Ed.)
    We show how a filtration of Delaunay complexes can be used to approximate the persistence diagram of the distance to a point set in ℝ^d. Whereas the full Delaunay complex can be used to compute this persistence diagram exactly, it may have size O(n^⌈d/2⌉). In contrast, our construction uses only O(n) simplices. The central idea is to connect Delaunay complexes on progressively denser subsamples by considering the flips in an incremental construction as simplices in d+1 dimensions. This approach leads to a very simple and straightforward proof of correctness in geometric terms, because the final filtration is dual to a (d+1)-dimensional Voronoi construction similar to the standard Delaunay filtration. We also, show how this complex can be efficiently constructed. 
    more » « less
  3. null (Ed.)
    Graphs model real-world circumstances in many applications where they may constantly change to capture the dynamic behavior of the phenomena. Topological persistence which provides a set of birth and death pairs for the topological features is one instrument for analyzing such changing graph data. However, standard persistent homology defined over a growing space cannot always capture such a dynamic process unless shrinking with deletions is also allowed. Hence, zigzag persistence which incorporates both insertions and deletions of simplices is more appropriate in such a setting. Unlike standard persistence which admits nearly linear-time algorithms for graphs, such results for the zigzag version improving the general O(m^ω) time complexity are not known, where ω < 2.37286 is the matrix multiplication exponent. In this paper, we propose algorithms for zigzag persistence on graphs which run in near-linear time. Specifically, given a filtration with m additions and deletions on a graph with n vertices and edges, the algorithm for 0-dimension runs in O(mlog² n+mlog m) time and the algorithm for 1-dimension runs in O(mlog⁴ n) time. The algorithm for 0-dimension draws upon another algorithm designed originally for pairing critical points of Morse functions on 2-manifolds. The algorithm for 1-dimension pairs a negative edge with the earliest positive edge so that a 1-cycle containing both edges resides in all intermediate graphs. Both algorithms achieve the claimed time complexity via dynamic graph data structures proposed by Holm et al. In the end, using Alexander duality, we extend the algorithm for 0-dimension to compute the (p-1)-dimensional zigzag persistence for ℝ^p-embedded complexes in O(mlog² n+mlog m+nlog n) time. 
    more » « less
  4. 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) time complexity. 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 persistent diagram in the 1-parameter setting. 
    more » « less
  5. We introduce harmonic persistent homology spaces for filtrations of finite simplicial complexes. As a result we can associate concrete subspaces of cycles to each bar of the barcode of the filtration. We prove stability of the harmonic persistent homology subspaces, as well as the subspaces associated to the bars of the barcodes, under small perturbations of functions defining them. We relate the notion of ``essential simplices'' introduced in an earlier work to identify simplices which play a significant role in the birth of a bar, with that of harmonic persistent homology. We prove that the harmonic representatives of simple bars maximizes the ``relative essential content'' amongst all representatives of the bar, where the relative essential content is the weight a particular cycle puts on the set of essential simplices. \footnote{An extended abstract of the paper appeared in the Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium on the Foundations of Computer Science, 2021.} 
    more » « less