No Arabic abstract
We propose an algebraic framework for generalized graph Laplacians which unifies the study of resistor networks, the critical group, and the eigenvalues of the Laplacian and adjacency matrices. Given a graph with boundary $G$ together with a generalized Laplacian $L$ with entries in a commutative ring $R$, we define a generalized critical group $Upsilon_R(G,L)$. We relate $Upsilon_R(G,L)$ to spaces of harmonic functions on the network using the Hom, Tor, and Ext functors of homological algebra. We study how these algebraic objects transform under combinatorial operations on the network $(G,L)$, including harmonic morphisms, layer-stripping, duality, and symmetry. In particular, we use layer-stripping operations from the theory of resistor networks to systematize discrete harmonic continuation. This leads to an algebraic characterization of the graphs with boundary that can be completely layer-stripped, an algorithm for simplifying computation of $Upsilon_R(G,L)$, and upper bounds for the number of invariant factors in the critical group and the multiplicity of Laplacian eigenvalues in terms of geometric quantities.
We develop some aspects of the homological algebra of persistence modules, in both the one-parameter and multi-parameter settings, considered as either sheaves or graded modules. The two theories are different. We consider the graded module and sheaf tensor product and Hom bifunctors as well as their derived functors, Tor and Ext, and give explicit computations for interval modules. We give a classification of injective, projective, and flat interval modules. We state Kunneth theorems and universal coefficient theorems for the homology and cohomology of chain complexes of persistence modules in both the sheaf and graded modules settings and show how these theorems can be applied to persistence modules arising from filtered cell complexes. We also give a Gabriel-Popescu theorem for persistence modules. Finally, we examine categories enriched over persistence modules. We show that the graded module point of view produces a closed symmetric monoidal category that is enriched over itself.
Many hard combinatorial problems can be modeled by a system of polynomial equations. N. Alon coined the term polynomial method to describe the use of nonlinear polynomials when solving combinatorial problems. We continue the exploration of the polynomial method and show how the algorithmic theory of polynomial ideals can be used to detect k-colorability, unique Hamiltonicity, and automorphism rigidity of graphs. Our techniques are diverse and involve Nullstellensatz certificates, linear algebra over finite fields, Groebner bases, toric algebra, convex programming, and real algebraic geometry.
The family of contractible graphs, introduced by A. Ivashchenko, consists of the collection $mathfrak{I}$ of graphs constructed recursively from $K_1$ by contractible transformations. In this paper we show that every graph in a subfamily of $mathfrak{I}$ (the strongly contractible ones) is a collapsible graph (in the simplicial sense), by providing a sequence of elementary collapses induced by removing contractible vertices or edges. In addition, we introduce an algorithm to identify the contractible vertices in any graph and show that there is a natural homomorphism, induced by the inclusion map of graphs, between the homology groups of the clique complex of graphs with the contractible vertices removed. Finally, we show an application of this result to the computation of the persistent homology for the Vietoris-Rips filtration.
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 recently introduced by Wang, Nguyen, and Wei. In particular, in analogy with the non-persistent case, we first prove that the nullity of the $q$-th persistent Laplacian $Delta_q^{K,L}$ 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 $Delta_q^{K,L}$, 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.
We relate finite generation of cones, monoids, and ideals in increasing chains (the local situation) to equivariant finite generation of the corresponding limit objects (the global situation). For cones and monoids there is no analogue of Noetherianity as in the case of ideals and we demonstrate this in examples. As a remedy we find local-global correspondences for finite generation. These results are derived from a more general framework that relates finite generation under closure operations to equivariant finite generation under general families of maps. We also give a new proof that non-saturated Inc-invariant chains stabilize, closing a gap in the literature.