Sheaves, Cosheaves and Applications

TL;DR

This thesis develops a combinatorial framework for sheaves and cosheaves, establishing their applications in topological data analysis, network coding, and sensor networks, and introduces new computational tools and metrics.

Contribution

It introduces cellular sheaves and cosheaves as computable models, establishes their equivalence with constructible cosheaves, and develops algorithms and metrics for their analysis.

Findings

Cellular sheaves provide a new computational tool for topological data analysis.

An equivalence between cellular sheaves and cosheaves is established, recovering Verdier duality.

The interleaving distance is introduced as a metric on the space of sheaves.

Abstract

This thesis develops the theory of sheaves and cosheaves with an eye towards applications in science and engineering. To provide a theory that is computable, we focus on a combinatorial version of sheaves and cosheaves called cellular sheaves and cosheaves, which are finite families of vector spaces and maps parametrized by a cell complex. We develop cellular (co)sheaves as a new tool for topological data analysis, network coding and sensor networks. A foundation for multi-dimensional level-set persistent homology is laid via constructible cosheaves, which are equivalent to representations of MacPherson's entrance path category. By proving a van Kampen theorem, we give a direct proof of this equivalence. A cosheaf version of the i'th derived pushforward of the constant sheaf along a definable map is constructed directly as a representation of this category. We go on to clarify the relationship of cellular sheaves to cosheaves by providing a formula that defines a derived equivalence, which in turn recovers Verdier duality. Compactly-supported sheaf cohomology is expressed as the coend with the image of the constant sheaf through this equivalence. The equivalence is further used to establish relations between sheaf cohomology and a herein newly introduced theory of cellular sheaf homology. Inspired to provide fast algorithms for persistence, we prove that the derived category of cellular sheaves over a 1D cell complex is equivalent to a category of graded sheaves. Finally, we introduce the interleaving distance as an extended pseudo-metric on the category of sheaves. We prove that global sections partition the space of sheaves into connected components. We conclude with an investigation into the geometry of the space of constructible sheaves over the real line, which we relate to the bottleneck distance in persistence.