‟The Convex Matching Distance in Multiparameter Persistence” by Francesco Conti, Patrizio Frosini, Ulderico Fugacci, Eloy Mosig García, Nicola Quercioli, Sara Scaramuccia, Francesca Tombari
Abstract:
In the context of multiparameter persistent homology, we introduce the convex matching distance, a novel metric for comparing multivalued functions. This metric measures the maximal bottleneck distance between the persistence diagrams associated with the convex combinations of the two function components. In the bi-parameter case, similarly to the traditional matching distance, the convex matching distance aggregates the information provided by two real-valued components. However, whereas the matching distance depends on two parameters, the convex matching distance depends on only one, offering improved computational efficiency. We further show that the convex matching distance can be more discriminative than the traditional matching distance in certain cases, although the two metrics are generally not comparable. Moreover, we prove that the convex matching distance is stable and characterize the coefficients of the convex combination at which it is attained. Finally, we demonstrate that this new aggregation framework benefits from the computational advantages provided by the Pareto grid, a collection of curves in the plane whose points lie in the image of the Pareto critical set associated with functions assuming values on the real plane. Experimental validation on MNIST digits, synthetic shapes, and chaotic attractors suggests that the convex matching distance provides a reliable and efficient alternative to the matching distance, at a significantly lower computational cost.