Homology and robustness of level and interlevel sets

Abstract

Given a continuous function $f\colon \mathbb{X} \to \mathbb{R}$ on a topological space, we consider the preimages of intervals and their homology groups and show how to read the ranks of these groups from the extended persistence diagram of $f$. In addition, we quantify the robustness of the homology classes under perturbations of $f$ using well groups, and we show how to read the ranks of these groups from the same extended persistence diagram. The special case $\mathbb{X} = \mathbb{R}^3$ has ramifications in the fields of medical imaging and scientific visualization.