Barcode embeddings for metric graphs (Q1983541)

In this paper, the authors use extended persistent homology (Section 2.4) to study the Reeb graph \(R\) induced by a continuous function \(f\) on a topological space \(X\) (Definition 2.9). The authors define a persistence distortion pseudometric between the subsets of barcode spaces of two metric graphs in Definition 3.10. They also define a measured persistence distortion pseudometric using the infinity Wasserstein metric in Definition 3.10. In Section 4, the authors review the stability of the persistence distortion pseudometric in Theorem 4.1. Then they prove the stability of the measured persistence distortion pseudometric in Theorem 4.2. In Section 5, the authors consider the inverse problem: do there exist pairs of metric measure graphs \(G\) and \(H\) which are not isometric but for which \(BT(G)=BT(H)\) and \(BMT(G)=BMT(H)\), which implies that the persistence distortion pseudometric and the measured persistence distortion pseudometric are both zero? The authors give such a counter-example in the beginning of Section 5. Moreover, the authors prove in Theorem 5.2 that \(BT\) is locally injective; prove in Theorem 5.3 that the barcode transform and the barcode measure transform are injective; and prove in Theorem 5.8 that under certain conditions on the persistence distortion pseudometric, two topological graphs are isometric. From Section 6 to Section 13, the authors give detailed proofs for the lemmas and the theorems in Section 3 and Section 5. Finally, in Section 14, the authors give the final conclusion that the barcode transform, which is a complex homology-based invariant of metric structure in the setting of metric graphs and metric measure graphs, is locally injective on all of MGraphs and globally injective on a generic subset of MGraphs. Moreover, there is strictly more information in BT(\(G\)) than its metric type as a subspace of Barcodes. The authors also discuss some possible directions and potential applications. In addition, in the appendix, the authors provide a lemma saying that in a geodesic tree (a special kind of graphs), the Čech filtration and the Rips filtration are equal up to a factor 2 in the parameter. Overall, the paper is a systematic study on persistent homology and metric graphs, which gives some potential tools for TDA.