Digital fundamental groups and edge groups of clique complexes (Q2098100)

The authors study the ``digital fundamental group'', continuing a new approach begun in [\textit{G. Lupton} et al., J. Appl. Comput. Topol. 5, No. 2, 249--311 (2021; Zbl 1481.55008)]. In this theory, a digital image \(X\) is a subset of the integer lattice \(\mathbb Z^n\), where points are viewed as adjacent when their coordinates differ by at most 1 in each position. (In contrast with other adjacencies often considered in the digital topology literature, this paper assumes all possible diagonal adjacencies.) In [loc. cit.] a digital fundamental group was defined, following basic ideas from [\textit{L. Boxer}, J. Math. Imaging Vis. 10, No. 1, 51--62 (1999; Zbl 0946.68151)], but changing the homotopy relation in a subtle and important way. This fundamental group enjoys several nice properties related to digital subdivision. In the present paper the authors relate their digital fundamental group to the ``edge group'' of an abstract simplicial complex. The edge group is a sort of combinatorial fundamental group, defined so that the edge group of an abstract complex \(K\) is isomorphic to the classical fundamental group of the geometric realization \(|K|\). The authors prove that, for a digital image \(X\), the digital fundamental group \(\pi_1(X)\) is isomorphic to the edge group \(E(Cl(X))\), where \(Cl(X)\) is the clique complex of \(X\) viewed as a graph. This isomorphism allows for facts about the classical fundamental group to be leveraged essentially as-is in the setting of digital images. In particular the authors prove a digital Seifert-van Kampen theorem which allows for computation of many examples. Their digital Seifert-van Kampen theorem takes the following form: when \(U\) and \(V\) are digital images with disconnected complements and \(U\cap V\) a single point, then \(\pi_1(U\cup V)\) is the free product \(\pi_1(U) * \pi_1(V)\). When \(U \cap V\) is not a single point, then \(\pi_1(U\cup V)\) is expressed as a certain quotient of this free product. This theorem is used to obtain the very nice result that the digital fundamental group for any \(X\subset \mathbb Z^2\) is a free group. It is not known what types of fundamental groups can appear for digital images in \(\mathbb Z^3\) As an interesting sidebar, the authors show that any simple graph \(G\) can be realized as a digital image in \(\mathbb Z^n\), where \(n\) is the number of vertices of \(G\). This allows for any graph to be considered as a digital image, without concern for whether or not it can be embedded into the integer lattice with diagonal adjacencies.