Algorithms for Multidimensional Persistence

Abstract: The theory of multidimensional persistence was introduced in a paper by G. Carlsson and A. Zomorodian as an extension to persistent homology. The central object in multidimensional persistence is the persistence module, which represents the homology of a multi filtered space. In this thesis, a novel algorithm for computing the persistence module is described in the case where the homology is computed with coefficients in a field. An algorithm for computing the feature counting invariant, introduced by Chachólski et al., is investigated. It is shown that its computation is in general NP-hard, but some special cases for which it can be computed efficiently are presented. In addition, a generalization of the barcode for persistent homology is defined and conditions for when it can be constructed uniquely are studied. Finally, a new topology is investigated, defined for fields of characteristic zero which, via the feature counting invariant, leads to a unique denoising of a tame and compact functor.